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RECOLLECTIONS 

1844-1909 



BY 



HENRY CLAY McDOUGAL 



KANSAS CITY, MO. 

Franklin Hudson Publishing Co. 

1910 






Copyright by 

HENRY CL\Y McDOUGAL 

1911 



CCI.A280 448 



FOREWORD. 

In the foreword may generally be found the writer's only 
reason for printing; hence it should be read, but seldom is. 
These recollections were commenced last spring, largely 
for the threefold purpose of preserving my personal experi- 
ences witii and reminiscences of a few of the men and women 
I have known; saying a word or two incidentally of some 
places I have been in ; and adding, under each name as a mere 
setting, some observations and reflections, thoughts and theo- 
ries of my own. All this was originally intended for the tear- 
ful perusal of family and friends after my death; but these 
are now the first to urge publication while I am still on earth. 
In every person, thing, or book there is to me some good. Man 
is dual — physical and mental. In younger years the former 
takes care of itself; but late in life one realizes that intellectu- 
ally no man or woman, thing or book is worth while unless 
one is thereby made to think. In early life, with some degree 
of impunity, the laws of God and man may be, and often are, 
violated ; but later I have degenerated into a sort of lazy brute 
and enter a plea of guilty to any kind of charge and yield any 
point, rather than take the trouble to either deny or explain. 
Then, too, I have long believed that the married man who 
does not keep on the good side of his wife is a chump. While 
admitting that I never taught school, robbed a train, murdered 
a baby, or wore chin-whiskers, and am both henpecked and 
chickenpecked at home, yet, with that experience which only 
age can bring, I confess that I do not now see my way clear to 

(7) 



8 RecollT-ctions 

deny my wife, children, and grandchildren their strong, earn- 
est appeal to print it all, and do it now. 

To the studious reader the repetitions in these recollec- 
tions must be apparent, the work crude and wholly unlike that 
of a trained book-writer; but what am I to do but obey? As 
the prince of poets said near the closing of Childe Harold's 
Pilgrimage: 

what is writ, is writ — 
Would it were worthier ! but I am not now 
That which I have been — and my visions flit 
Less ])alpably before me — and the glow 
Whicli in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint and low. 
1909. H. C. McD. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Early Years — Army — Travels — Friends. 

Born December 9, 1844 on Dunkard Mill Run, in Marion 
County, (now West) Virginia, and there reared on my father's 
farm, the usual farm work and school life of the country 
youth were mine up to the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, 
which ended for me both farm and school days. The same 
little log school-house at Bethel, just across the hill from 
home, served as my kindergarten, common school, college, and 
university ; that was my little world, and in life's race I am 
still necessarily handicapped by that lack of scholarship char- 
acterized as "the poverty of language." But early in '61 the 
Confederate forces who had held possession of our part of 
the country, were driven Southward, and in July of that year 
I enlisted in the Union Army, Company A, 6th Virginia Vol- 
enteer Infantry, and, among many other assignments for a 
private soldier, was made chief clerk of my brigade, where 
I served my last year in the Army, 1863-4. Upon being mus- 
tered out at Wheeling, West Virginia, by reason of the expira- 
tion of my term of enlistment on August 18, 1864, I was at 
once made chief personal transportation clerk in the United 
States Quartermaster's Department ; first under Captain Hen- 
ry Harrison Boggess, at Gallipolis, Ohio, and later under 
Captain Lewis Cass Forsyth, at Indianapolis, Indiana. In the 
meanwhile, however, Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, then Quar- 
termaster-General of the United States Army, made me his 
special agent at Cincinnati, Ohio, and I served there in that 

(9) 



10 Recollections 

capacity during the summer and fall of 1865. I quit th'e service 
of the United States at Indianapolis in March, 1866, and spent 
the remainder of that spring and the summer of that year in 
travel, and in visiting my mother's people at and around Alex- 
andria, Virginia, at Washington, D. C, and in other cities of 
the East. 

My father had removed, in March, 1866, from West Vir- 
ginia to Bancroft, in Daviess County, Missouri, and I arrived 
at his new home on October 25, 1866. My intention in coming 
west was to visit my family for ten days or two weeks ; but I 
have been a citizen and lawyer pf Missouri nearly forty-three 
years now — lirst at Gallatin, and since 1885 at Kansas City. 

While in the Army, and more especially when I was the 
chief clerk of our brigade, at both Clarksburg and New Creek 
(now Keyser) in West Virginia, as well as while in the Quar- 
termaster's Department, at Washington and elsewhere, I had 
exceptional advantages in becoming personally well acquainted 
and walking and talking with many of America's foremost 
men and women 

Since the Civil War, too, while holding public office oc- 
casionally, I have traveled and studied and worked more than 
most persons, and come in contact and grown somewhat famil- 
iar with men and women and things not only throughout our 
own country, but also in Canada and Old Mexico. For I 
have often traveled from ocean to ocean and from Lakes to 
Gulf, and upon the ground have studied physical and social 
conditions, and spent from days to months in nearly all our 
States and Territories. I attended the World's Fairs at Phil- 
adelphia (1876), Chicago (1893), and St. Louis (1904), as 
well as National Encampments of the Grand Army of the Re- 
public at Minneapolis (1884), San Francisco (1886), St. Louis 
(1887), Columbus (1888), Washington (1892), Cincinnati 



IXTRODUCTIOX \l 

(18981. Washington {igo2). and Denver (1905I : and ha\-e 
also aiiended. a? an onlooker, most of the National Conven- 
tions of both political panies. beginning with the Democratic 
National Convention at St. Louis in iS-6. Then, too, I have 
professionally ven- often been before the Uniievl States Su- 
preme Coun and in the Departments at Washington ; and have 
known all our Presidents personally since 1S66, and the Cab- 
inet officers of most all of diem as well 

So it came about that as an American iarnicr-i\->v, cicrk, 
soldier, lawyer, official, and traveler, and withal something of 
a Bohemian. I have come in contact with and personallv known 
all sorts of people, from the highest to the lowest. But as 
life's game is closing. I look back now with no little pleasure 
and some pride upon these incidents: i^i) I was born and 
reared on a fann; {2) served as a soldier in the I'nion Army; 
and (3) that my professional brethren unanimously chose me 
as President of the Missouri Bar Association. 

Originally tlie names of many of the closest and best of 
my friends were classified under proper heads, and tlien alpha- 
betically arranged, with the intention of writing a few words 
of my own as to each individual. That list is creditable alike 
to the retentive memory and long life of a good mixer among 
his fellows; yet tlie fact now looms up mountain higli that 
many of the great and good friends named nuist be here passed 
by in silence, and only the highest peaks of life's liighway 
noted, for my list is too long and life too short to gi\ c n line 
to each, however pleasant to me. BiU apart from tins con- 
sideration, outside of m\ immediate family and friends, only 
a few would find interest in the mere names and personal in- 
cidents anyway. Hence 1 must now content myself w itli short, 
personal sketches of the few. 

To all who know tliem, those wliom I here name will 



12 Recollections 

present themselves as either good or great — to me they were 
both. The men of my own profession heretofore noted by 
Clark are herein referred to first. Then will come my own 
sketches, under proper head, of the lawyers I knew best and 
esteemed most in West Virginia, Missouri, and a few other 
States. Then I shall say a word of the Presidents I have 
known since 1866 j and then of a mere handful of the states- 
men, soldiers, journalists, poets, and some of the other men 
and women worth while, among the many I have met and 
known. 

1909- H. C. McD. 



RECOLLECTIONS. 



SHORT PERSONAL SKETCHES. 
I. 

Lawyers Pictured by Ceark. 

In the private library at my home, in one large frame^ 
hang the photogravure portraits of 144 of the eminent Eng- 
lish-speaking lawyers of the world, while up in my den there, 
in two volumes gotten out in 1895 by Gilbert J. Clark, Esq., of 
the Kansas City bar, may be found in print a brief sketch of 
the life of each of these, men. Out of the entire 144 lawyers 
there pictured and sketched, 115 were Americans, and of these 
1 knew personally 68. In the two volumes named, Mr. Clark 
there said in print much of that which might have been writ- 
ten concerning each man named, and for that reason alone I 
do not here repeat his sketches, nor do more than merely cite 
these volumes and ask the curious reader to consult the books 
themselves. But out of all the 144, from my reading, study, 
and observation, I am of opinion that the three who will go 
down in history as our greatest and best American lawyers 
were Chief Justice John Marshall, of Virginia, Justice Samuel 
F. Miller, of Iowa, and Lemuel Shaw, of Massachusetts. Our 
very masters of logic were in turn John C. Calhoun and Ros- 
coe Conkling, and our great legal and public orator was Henry 
Clay, yet the master of them all as an eloquent and impassioned 
talker was Sargent Smith Prentiss, of Mississippi. Indeed, 
so firm is this conviction, that in my opinion Prentiss was the 

(13) 



]4 RecolLixtions 

one great natural orator vvliich this country has produced 
since the early days of Patrick Henry, of Virginia. My anno- 
tations, made in the past few months in these two volumes, go 
to make up my personal estimate of my lawyer friends there 
sketched. 

In addition to the lawyers therein named, among the many 
other wise and successful i)ractitioners of my chosen profes- 
sion whom 1 have met and known in a close, personal w-ay, I 
shall here sa)- a few words of those whom I consider as being 
above their fellows, and then little sketches of others. 

11. 

Lawyers — Two Observations. 

Of some of the lawyers alphabetically pictured and 
sketched by Brother Clark, these two legal observations should 
here be made and considered: John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, 
Daniel Webster, and Thomas Hart Benton all passed away 
before my day. All were lawyers, yet Mr. Clark omits the last. 
Americans revere and honor the memory of each one of this 
I5ig Four of the United States Senate, and agree that all were 
great. But 1 here record the prediction that in the long years 
that yet shall be the latter will go down in history as the great- 
est of them all. Calhoun, Clay, and Webster were careless of 
their future fame, but that was not true of Benton. Either 
in his "Thirty Years' \iew," in two volumes, or in his "Abridg- 
ment of the Debates in Congress," in sixteen volumes, Benton 
religiously preserved, in substance and effect, every great speech 
he ever made, while those of the others appear only in frag- 
meniary form. Benton forecast the years and knew better 
than any other man of his day the value and durability of 
printers' ink ; hl^ comj)eers did not. 

Salmon P. Chase, Morrison R. Waite, and Melville W. 



Lawvf;rs 15 

Fuller have been the several Chief Justices of the United 
States Supreme Court since 1866, and I have known them, as 
well as all other members of that high court, as I have both 
lost and won cases in that tribunal. So much has been written 
and spoken concerning them all, that it were folly to here 
mention each jurist specially, as these little memories are al- 
ready too long. But attention might here be directed to this: 
The lawyer who thoroughly knows the facts and the law of 
his case has nothing to fear in that court and to him it 's the 
easiest American court to talk to; but woe to him who is not 
familiar with his case ! They stop one and ask questions one 
never hears elsewhere, and what they most want is a plain, 
concise, shorthand statement of facts and princii)les ; for its 
members know and will state and apply the law which rules 
its proper decision. 

III. 

Lawyers — West Virginia. 

FAIRMONT: Alpiieus F. Haymond was the son 
Colonel Thomas S. Haymond, who represented that district 
in the Congress of the United States prior to the Civil War, 
and was born, reared, lived, and died at Fairmont in Marion 
County, (now West) X'irginia. He became and for many years 
was one of the most learned lawyers as well as one of the best 
j)ublic speakers of his time. As a Union man, he was a mem- 
ber of the \'irginia Convention of i86r, and both spoke and 
voted against the passage of the State Ordinance of Secession 
at Richmond. But when the first Federal troops marched into 
his native town in May, i86t, Haymond at once went South- 
ward, and there served in the Confederate Army as Chief 
Quartermaster, first to Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson (who was 



16 Recollections 

born and reared at Clarksburg in the adjoining county of Har- 
rison), and after his death, to Gen. Jubal Early. After that 
war, he was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of 
West Virginia for ten years, and then resumed the law prac- 
tice at his home, where he died at the age of seventy. Early 
in life he married my cousin. Miss Maria Boggess. They 
reared a large family of rarely intellectual children. He was a 
most enthusiastic and patient fisherman; and on the banks of 
the beautiful IMonongahela River, I 've seen him watch his 
cork, without a bite or a wink, for half a day at a time. He 
was busy in absorbed thought upon some legal proposition, 
and to him it mattered little whether he caught the fish or not. 

A. Brooks Fleming was first made the Prosecuting At- 
torney of our county (Marion) in 1863; married Carrie Wat- 
son in 1865; was made Judge of the Circuit Court, and later 
the Governor of his State. Is an able lawyer, a rich man ; fond 
of literature, history, and Democratic politics. 

JohnW. Mason served in my own regiment (6th W. 
Va.) in the early part of the war, and then as a sergeant 
in Maulsby's Battery. He was U. S. Commissioner of Inter- 
nal Revenue during President Benjamin Harrison's term of 
office, and for four years has been, as he still is, the Circuit 
Judge of our native country. No better lawyer nor braver sol- 
dier is found. 

CLARKSBURG : Caleb BoggEss was an able, painstak- 
ing lawyer, who had an enormous private practice and finally 
became the general counsel of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail- 
road Company. 

Nathan GoFF, Jr., a rich, handsome, and learned lawyer, 
was, when first I met him, a private and then adjutant of the 
3d Virginia (Union) Infantry. Then was promoted through 
the various grades up to brigadier-general when the Civil 



Lawyers 17 

War encied. Later on he was made U. S. District Attorney, 
member of the lower house of the Congress, Secretary of the 
Navy in the Cabinet of President Hayes, and is now a Judge 
of the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals. From boyhood he has 
been a magnetic, powerful, and persuasive public speaker. Was 
born to wealth and position ; married Laura Despard when 
young, reared a family, and through it all is the only man 
whom I have ever known that the money of earth has left un- 
spotted and unspoiled. I spent a summer afternoon with him 
at his Clarksburg home a few years ago, and found him as m 
youth, in a full suit of white from his shoes to his hat. 

WiivLiAM A. Harrison, a grave-faced, thoughtful Judge 
of the State Supreme Court when I knew him. He had 
an old bachelor brother or other kinsman, whose given name I 
do not now recall, living in the same town. One night this old 
philosopher and thinker said to me, 'way back when I was a 
boy: "You now think you "11 never marry. Now that would 
not be so bad if you die under sixty, but awful after that age. 
Look at my condition: Here I am, old and rich, with houses, 
slaves, and money ; but there is not a single human being in 
all the world, white or black, that would raise a hand or do 
anything for me, were it not for the hope that, when I am done 
with it, they will inherit' or in some way get my wealth. I tell 
you, my boy, if would be better for you to reconsider and marry 
some good girl while yet young." 

AlORGANTOWxX : John Marshall Hagans called on 
Secretary of the Navy Goff with me at Washington when the 
latter was in the Hayes Cabinet, and later we spent the day to- 
gether at Goff's home in Clarksburg. They were close friends. 
Hagans married the daughter of U. S. Senator Waitman T. 
Willey, and was afterward a member of Congress, and then a 
most careful Judge of the Circuit Court. The last time we 



1^ Recollkctioxs 

met was in company with Captain Amos N. Prichard, at Wat- 
son's Hotel in Fairmont, in 1900. Hagans then looi<ed old and 
gray, for he was in the last stages of Bright's disease, but still 
on the bench. I recall how profoundly he regretted that, on 
account of his health, he could not join Prichard and me in a 
good olu P.ourbon whisky toddy. 

PARKERSBURG: John J. Jackson was appointed by 
President Lincoln in April, 1861, as U. S. District Judge of 
his State, and on the bench earned for himself the title of "the 
Iron Jurist." He held his office for over forty years and died 
only recently. But he was great always as lawyer, man, and 
judge 

Lawyers — Missouri. 
GALLATIN: Jami-s McFerran, a native of Maryland 
came to Missouri in 1848 and filled many offices. Among 
others, uns Judge of the Circuit Court, a member of the State 
Convention of 1861-3, and colonel ol the ist Al. S. M. Cavalry 
He was a most careful, methodical, and painstaking lawyer, and 
could gel more out of the statutes of the State than any one 
else I ever knew. He organized and incorporated the Daviess 
County Savings Association at Gallatm , but in 1867 removed 
his family from that town to Chillicothe, Missouri, where he 
opened another bank. In 1873 he left this State, and from that 
time to h.s death, in 1891. this multi-millionaire owned a bank 
at Colorado bprings. Colorado. He continued to practice law 
at Gallatin as long as he remained in this State, w^as a member 
of the committee that examined me for a license to practice 
law (as were also Henry M. Vories and Joel F. Asper^ and 
soon after my admission became my first law partner, under 
the firm name of McFerran & McDougal. 

Upon procuring my license to practice law on November 6 
1868, among a lot of other rules, I then solemnly resolved that' 
i would never give legal advice without charging a fee That 



LAvv^■ERS 19 

very afternoon a farmer called and asked my advice on some 
road law question. How I happened to know that law and 
answer him correctly will always remain a mystery, but the 
legal advice was given. He inquired the amount of my fee. 
Recollecting my rule, burning up with fright and excitement, 
which I tried not to show, I promptly answered, "Three dollars 
and a half." He paid it and went away as happy as I was. 
But how or why I stumbled on that figure ^or my first fee, I 
don't know today. 

Another rule of that day was that I would never spend 
five minutes on the testimony in any case in which I did not 
have a substantial fee. In that way only could I devote all my 
time to the study of problems and cases that paid cash. This 
rule was a professional necessity then, for I was young and 
joor; but now it has grown into a life habit and is still 
practiced. 

At the request of the Gallatin newspaper men, I wrote up 
a tribute to Colonel McFerran's memory after his death, which 
was widely copied by other papers. He was able, just, and 
even generous, and but few seemed to know all this. In look- 
ing backward now. my recollection is that the only really mean 
I)olitical trick I ever turned was at AIcFerran's expense, al- 
though it proved a blessing in disguise. He was always a pro- 
nounced Democrat and I an enthusiastic young Republican. 
As a member of the Missouri Convention of 1861-3 he had 
drawn the report for his committee on the test oath question, 
and when that report came up for hearing, made a bitter speech 
against "ministers of the gospel" who were inclined South- 
ward, in June, 1862. I had read, studied, and preserved the 
printed proceedings of the debates in that convention, and 
still have them all in my library. In 1872 McFerran was a 
candidate for the Congressional nomination in his party, and 



20 Recollfxtions 

I believed that, if nominated, he would be elected over our man, 
for his regiment was made up from that district. So I care- 
fully marked the objectionable part of his speech, carried it 
to and laid it before the editor of the Democratic newspaper 
in our town, and left it there without a word. He was not 
nominated. 

Samuel Arbuckle Richardson was a native of Ken- 
tucky, reared in Ray County, Missouri, but for many years a 
resident of Gallatin, and died there in December, 1882. His un- 
equaled physical and moral courage, coupled with his splendid 
common sense and knowledge of the law, made him one of the 
most formidable antagonists at the bar to be found anywhere. 
Men feared or loved him; but at home with his family he was 
as gentle as a child. He was the attorney of his circuit in the 
early days and for about ten years of his later life was a most 
exemplary Judge of the Circuit Court. He was my neighbor 
and friend, and when he knew the end could not be far away, 
he sent for me and urged me to write a sketch of his life and 
his death. In vain I attempted to beg ofif, on the grounds that 
I was not a writer ; that he was a Christian and I a pagan ; that 
he should, therefore, request his own pastor to prepare such 
a sketch. His answer to all my arguments was this: "No, you 
must write it ; no other will do ; for I know you will do my mem- 
ory justice." Hence, after he was laid away, I did prepare, 
not only the proceedings of the bar, but also the sketch which 
he urged, and both were afterward printed in full in the Gal- 
latin newspapers. 

Boyd Dudley was born in Marion County, Virginia, nearly 
fifty years ago, but since 1866 has lived nearly all the time in 
Gallatin, where he has successfully practiced law since early 
manhood. As he is my nephew and I reared and educated 
him, after the death of his father in 1868, I do not say much 



Lawyers 21 

about him here. However, in all his adult life he possessed in 
a high and noted degree one attribute to which I have ever been 
a stranger — he knows how to and does save his money, and will 
no doubt end his career as not only a great and good lawyer, 
but a wealthy man. In 1881 he took a flier down at Socorro in 
New Mexico, where the Mexicans always referred to him as 
"el cochito avogada" — "the little lawyer" ; nor do I forget the 
language of their local paper in announcing his arrival in that 
then boom town: "Hell 's broke loose; another Missouri 
lawyer struck the town last night." 

John Adams Leopard was born in Virginia and became 
a member^ of the Gallatin bar in the spring of 1852. He was 
my firm friend from the time I located there, up to the day of. 
his death in 1905. At the annual meeting of the ^Missouri Bar 
Association, held in St. Joseph in 1906, I delivered a memorial 
address on the life, character, and achievements of this vener- 
able lawyer, orator, dreamer, scholar, and patriot. It is re- 
ported in full in tlie printed proceedings of that meeting, at 
pages 188-195. In it I noted the law practice as I found it in 
the W^est, named many of the State leaders of the bar at the 
date of Leopard's admission, and to that tribute now feel that 
I can add nothing. (See Appendix.) 

CANTON : David Wagner, a rapid and careful law 
writer and on the bench of the Missouri Supreme Court con- 
tinuously from April, 1865, to 1877, and during all that time his 
short, crisp, lawyerlike opinions will be found reported in the 
volumes containing the decisions of that tribunal. I was last 
with him, in the same room at the hotel, at the State Republican 
Convention held at Sedalia in the spring of 1880, wherein we 
were delegates from our respective counties. 

CARROLLTON : Robert D. Ray was by birth a Ken- 
tucky, but lived for many years in Carroll County, and when 



22 Recollect IONS 

first I came west at the close of the war, attended the courts 
of the Grand River country, and especially in Daviess and Liv- 
ingston counties. His custom during the day was to sit or 
walk alone, which he denominated "generating the law," and 
spend the evening in some friend's law office and repeat poetry, 
his favorite in that day being Bret Harte's "Heathen Chinee." 
He was on the Supreme Court bench from 1881 to 1891, and 
was a most careful and conscientious lawyer and Judge. 

John B. Hale was colonel of a Missouri regiment in the 
war, a member of the Constitution Convention of 1875, and 
later of the U. S. Congress. Soon after his death, Ralph F, 
Lozier, Esq.. who had been Hale's law student and was then 
a member of tlie Carrollton bar, delivered before the Missouri 
Bar Association at Kansas City a memorial address on the life 
and character of Hale, which is found in the printed proceed- 
ings of that Association for 1907. 

CHILLICOTHE: ElbridgE J. Broaddus was born in 
Kentucky, but lived and practiced and was on the trial court 
bench at Chillicothe for many years, and is now the presiding 
Judge of the Kansas City Court of Appeals. Wiien his homt, 
was in Chillicothe and mine in Gallatin (only 26 miles apart), 
we saw much of each other. Together we then tried cases, 
were sometimes opposed to each other, and each tried cases 
before the other. Then we hunted and fished, smoked and 
drank together, and each was often a guest at the home and 
office of the other, and it is a pleasure to here record the fact 
that, in addition to being a most excellent lawyer, Broaddus 
was always and in all places, first of all, a gentleman. 

While Broaddus was holding his court down at Kingston, 
about 1878, he appointed the visiting members of the bar to ex- 
amine a young applicant for license to practice law, and I was 
on that committee. That night we examined the young man. 



Lawyers 23 

and found that he was as bright as a button on everything else, 
but knew a1)solutely nothing about law. We had to and did re- 
port the fact to the court the following morning, and neces- 
sarily refused to recommend a license. While we were all 
busy in court that morning, the young man stalked in, bright, 
chipper, confidently anxious and willing to wrestle with his 
first client. Addressing the Court with the utmost composure, 
he said in a loud voice: "If your Honor please, I have been 
duly examined touching my qualifications to practice the law, 
and I am now here to receive my license." Judge Broaddus 
gravely told him that the committee had reported adversely 
and that it was not in the Court's power to issue the license. 
Without batting an eye or showing the slightest embarrassment, 
the applicant carefully looked us all over and said to the Court: 
"Well, sir, judging from the personal appearance of the law- 
yers here assembled, I must be the first man who was ever 
refused a license to practice law at this bar." 

Frank Sheetz went from his father's farm in Clay Coun- 
ty, Missouri, to Chillicothe, and there entered the law office of 
Broaddus & Pollard about 1872. Even then he was a student, 
thinker, and worker, and all these he has ever since continued. 
The natural result is that for many years he has been one of 
the safest and best lawyers in the State. As man and lawyer, 
friend and citizen, he is still a blessing to his community; hon- 
ors and trusts his legion of friends and curses his few enemies, 
just as he did when a boy. 

KANSAS CITY: Charles O. Tichenor must have 
proven himself a most exemplary officer in the Civil War, for, 
ever since I have known him, now many long years, I have 
regarded him as the most careful, methodical, hard-working 
lawyer I ever met. Always an earnest but genial man and law- 
yer, when he undertakes the prosecution or defense of any civil 



24 Recollections 

case, he goes to the bottom of both law and fact. These at- 
tributes have made him the leader, the head and front, of the 
Kansas City and Western bar, while his powers of logical 
statement are unsurpassed. Plain, unassuming, direct, he daily 
exemplifies the known fact that the simple and the natural, 
in human life as in mechanics, always win. 

John F. Philips has filled many high and important pub- 
lic positions, from that of colonel oi the 7th Regiment ^NI.'S. M. 
Cavalry during the war, to the office of Judge of the U. S. 
Court, and always with credit to his friends and honor to iiim- 
self. At the bar he was the very master of pleading, of prac- 
tice and the rules of evidence, and on the bench forgets none 
of his splendid legal achievements. His reported opinions in 
both State and P'ederal Courts, as well as his public speeches 
and addresses, are models of classical learning and logic, un- 
usual eloquence, rare pathos, and marvelous power. That the 
higher courts have sometimes held him in error detracts noth- 
ing from the correctness of his conclusions and only demon- 
strates the fallibility of human reasoning. The bench, bar, and 
people, while conceding his honesty of purpose, are prone to 
regard him as coldly cynical ; yet, as his neighbor and friend, I 
know that he is both warm-hearted and even generous, as well 
as most just always. None other has lambasted me personally 
as he has ; yet it is only his way, and he has never either per- 
petrated or permitted a wrong 

Frank HagErman is a native Missourian and for twenty 
years has been a member of the Kansas City bar, where his 
hard professional work and sterling business sense have brought 
him both fame and fortune; and now he is one of the leaders 
of the Western bar. During my term of office as City Coun- 
selor, for these reasons, I selected him from the sixteen special 
counsel for the people to accompany me eastward and assist 



Lawyers 25 

in what was known as the Kansas City Water Works case, in- 
volving $3,179,000, in the summer of 1895. In that case, to- 
gether we went to the cities of New York, Boston, BurHngton, 
Vermont, and St. Paul, and argued before Mr. Justice David 
J. Brewer, of the U. S. Supreme Court, who had that case, 
every question that could come up, and finally won, to the 
perfect satisfaction of everyone in Kansas City. Our most 
formidable antagonists were William B. Hornblower and 
Wheeler Peckham, of New York; Moorefield Story, of Boston; 
and Louis C. Krauthoff, Charles O. Tichenor, and Gardiner 
Lathrop, of this bar. In our five special trips to the East our 
plans often went awry, and more than once Hagerman lay 
down utterly disheartened and insisted that all our work was 
in vain, the City must lose; that we were up against a stone 
wall, beaten, etc. To this not unreasonable complaint, as well 
as to bolster him up, I always answered, in substance, that I 
knew his conclusions were not sound ; that our case might look 
discouraging,' but that, with his "splendid ability" and my 
"nerve," we two made up the best legal team the people could 
have sent east, and that we would finally win. 

During these New England journeys that summer we 
twice stopped at the old wooden hotel in the ancient city of 
Vergennes, Vermont. Its wide, clean beds, its splendid table, 
and big black Angora cat are among the unforgotten joys; 
but one of our drives from that town across the country seven 
miles to North Ferrisburg, where Brewer lived in summer, 
was the most enjoyable I ever made. The horses and carriage^ 
were good and the country road better. In driving over early 
one morning, the flowers bloomed, the birds sang, and the 
dew was on the grass, while nearby Lake Champlain and the 
Adirondacks were to our left and the Green Mountains of Ver- 
mont to our right. All these made up a scene to be enjoyed 
once and remembered through life. 



26 Recollections 

Our last oral argument in that case before Justice Brewer 
Avas made at Burlington, Vermont, in September, 1895, on the 
supnlemental bill of the opposition on behalf of the "Boston 
syndicate/' for $300,000 damages against the City. There was 
a world of vexation in that bill and little else. Brewer inclined 
to the belief that Hagerman and I were right, but directed 
counsel on both sides to submit him briefs in thirty days. As 
Hagerman was worn out and came on home, I worked day and 
night on our argument alone, from Burlington through Mont- 
pelier, the White Mountains, Portland, Boston, and on to New 
York. Here the work was completed and mailed to the printer. 
When the other side read that brief, they promptly dismissed 
their bill and the City heard no more of that claim. No won- 
der, for that argument filled the old Virginian's definition of 
"a powerful good job of skinnin",'" and I am rather proud of 
it today. The effort, however, brought upon me the symptoms 
of vertigo, and, accompanied by our genial associate, Frank F. 
Rozzelle, of this city, we spent some weeks at Cobb's Island, 
off the coast of \'irginia, and then visited at Norfork and 
Richmond on our leisurely homeward march. 

In browsing around Richmond, however, Rozzelle and I 
visited the old State House, and Library, St John's Church, 
John Marshall's old home, the war home of Jeff Davis, Libby 
Prison, Hollywood Cemetery, and all other points and places 
of interest to the stranger in and about that ancient and historic 
city of beauty and chivalry. But by far the most interesting 
trip of them all to me was the Sunday afternoon we drove out 
past the equestrian statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee on his war- 
horse "Traveler," as both looked on the field along in the early 
'60s, and then on out to the Lee-Camp Soldier's Home of the 
old Confederates, where Col. Chas. P. Bigger was the Com- 
mandant. To him I reported "present for duty," and in sub- 
stance said : "Colonel, away back in the days of the early Col- 



Lawyers 27 

ony, my people came here and located on the James under the 
charter of 1609, and ever since then have been known as the 
Virginians of Virginia — F. F. V.s, if you please; but when the 
Civil War came on, an elder brother enlisted under your flag, 
while I went the other way ; as a Union soldier, for four years 
I did my best to obey the always command, 'On to Richmond!' 
but you fellows then kept us out; so this is the first time I ever 
got into the city, and now I want to meet and know the old 
'Johnnies' at this Home." The short, fat, good-natured Com- 
mandant literally took me in his arms, and said: "God bless 
you, sir; you are just the kind of a Yankee soldier we like to 
meet here." In his jolly, soldierly way, he then presented me 
to old boys who had marched and fought with Lee, Jackson, 
Jeb Stuart, Ashby, Alosby, Jenkins, ct al, and I do not recol- 
lect to have spent a more enjoyable afternoon than at the 
Lee Home. 

George W. McCrarv was Judge of the U. S. Circuit 
Court when first I met him, and afterward a practicing law- 
yer here and President of the Missouri Bar Association. But 
with some pleasure I now recall the fact that when I was a 
law student back in 1868, at Gallatin, Judge Frank Ballinger, of 
Keokuk, Iowa, was visiting members of his family in that town, 
and he and I spent a summer afternoon there on the grass out 
under a spreading shade-tree. AlcCrary had just been nom- 
inated for Congress by the Republican Convention in his dis- 
trict up in Iowa, and the good old lawyer, in speaking of him, 
said : "Keep your eye on that young fellow, for he is one of 
your coming men." The venerable jurist then told me that 
one morning, years before that, a young farmer-appearing boy 
came into his law office at Keokuk and said he wanted to read 
and stud}- law with him ; that he questioned the young fellow 
closely as to his hopes, fears, ambitions, etc., and finally wound 
up his talk by asking the lad what he expected to accomplish. 
The rather startling answer struck and amused Ballinger, for 



28 Recollections 

the boy said *. "I intend to study law in the summer and teach 
school in the winter-time to support myself; then, after my 
admission to the bar, I shall first go to the Legislature, next 
to the State Senate, then to Congress, and before I die I shall 
be a United States senator or a Cabinet officer." Ballinger 
thought sucli confidence and modesty should be rewarded, and 
at once took the young man into his office. He then told me 
the announced program had so far been fully carried out, and 
that there could be no doubt about the future, as the boy would 
be elected to Congress and would go higher; but again said, 
"Watch him." I did. That boy's name was George W. Mc- 
Crary. He was then elected to Congress, wrote a law-book on 
"Elections," became Secretary of War in the Cabinet of Pres- 
ident Hayes, and thereafter held the proud position which T 
have named, as well as being the general counsel of one of 
our great railway corporations. 

While ]\IcCrary was practicing law in Kansas City, I rep- 
resented the plaintiff in an important land case in the Fed- 
eral Court, but there was one slight defect in my client's title 
which gave me no little trouble. At first a very technical law- 
yer was employed on the other side and filed an elaborate 
answer, setting up twenty-seven specific objections to our title, 
but not the one that I feared. Then ]\IcCrary was employed; 
his keen legal mind grasped the vital point, and he filed a little, 
short amended answer, discarding all else, but predicating his 
defense solely upon the one point against me. Upon that he 
won the case, as he had the legal right to do. He was genial 
and gentle, and, above all, a great and good lawyer. 

LIBERTY: Samuel HardwickE, an accomplished, 
scholarly gentleman, through a long life kept up all his classic- 
al studies ; he was an able lawyer, and was born, reared, and 
died in Clay County. 



Lawyers 29 

In and for some years following 1869, we were on opposite 
sides of a series of Daviess County cases at Gallatin and I came 
to know him intimately. When he and the Pinkerton Detect- 
ive Agency were endeavoring to exterminate the James boys, 
of this county, from 1870 on up, I was their middle-man and 
all their correspondence was through me. That both were zeal- 
ous there can be no question ; but the friends of the gang made 
matters so hot in old Clay for the Alajor that he was com- 
pelled to abandon his home and temporarily reside at St. Paul, 
in ^Minnesota. Upon the completion of a truce between them, 
he returned to Liberty, but pending that trouble gave me elab- 
orate sketches of the James fam^ily history, their exploits, etc. 

On December 7, 1869, two men robbed the bank at my 
home town of Gallatin, killed my friend Captain John W. 
Sheets, who was cashier, and then made good their escape. 
Citizens of the town fired upon them so hotly that the race- 
mare of one of the robbers got away from him and the two 
fled on the remaining horse. Near the town they overtook a 
farmer named Daniel Smoote, who was riding homeward, 
forced him to dismount, took his horse, and away they went. 
Later our citizens saw and had a running fight with the rob- 
bers down in Clay County, and recognized Smoote's horse, but 
made no capture. Two days later Smoote came to employ me 
to bring an attachment suit for the race-mare, saddle, and 
bridle, which were there in a livery barn. The robbers had 
committed a felony and the right to an action was clear. I was 
young, had been through the war, was just married, and, when 
Smoote gave me the facts, did not think of fearing to begin 
his suit against anybody. The fact came to me afterward that 
Smoote had been to all the older lawyers of the bar, and all 
had declined his case because of the defendants. WeW, I 
brought his case in the old Common Pleas Court there, against 



30 Recollections 

Frank James and Jesse James, and attached this property early 
in 1870. The defendants, by attorneys (not personally), ap- 
peared and filed their answer. To prove my case was to fix 
upon them the murder of my friend Sheets, and there I was I 
By agreement tlie case was continued until I saw my way 
clear to get to the jury and I announced ready for trial. Then 
the opposition withdrew the answer, judgment was rendered, 
and the sheriff sold the attached property. 

But pending that case, I shall never forget just how Major 
Hardwicke and Colonel Tom McCarty, of his town, took me 
away around the corner of the old court-house at Gallatin, 
in the spring of 1870, and there imparted the secret and nor 
over-consoling information, that because l had brought that 
suit and attached the favorite race-mare of Jesse James, that 
gentleman had sworn to kill me on sight. As Jesse knew me 
and I did not know him, there was nothing left for me but 
to take my medicine in absolute silence, and I did. Years after- 
ward, in April, 1882, I was busy in my office at Gallatin; Alajor 
Samuel P. Cox (who was credited with killing Captain Bill 
Anderson, the guerrilla leader of the James- Younger crew in 
1864) was there, reading the morning paper, when I received 
a telegraphic message from my then partner, Marcus A. Low, 
saying that Jesse James had been killed at St. Joseph, Missouri, 
on that day. In silence I read the wire and then passed it to 
Major Cox. After lie had finished it, I said, "Major, you don't 
know what a load that message takes from my mind." With 
the fire of war blazing again in his eyes, the good Major aston- 
islicd me by answering, "By Gad ! sir, I do know, and I am 
perhaps the only living man that has known all about this 
matter for years." He then told me that back in Kentucky he 
and the father of Clel Miller were boys together; that in the 
l)attle in which Bill Anderson lost his life down in Ray County, 
Missouri, in 1864, he had recognized Clel as the son of his old 



Lawyers 31 

friend; that the boy was in Anderson's command and was 
severely wounded, and that, being in command of the Union 
forces, the Major had driven away one of his men who was in 
the act of finishing the boy; that early in 1871, Jesse James, 
with Clel Miller and Dick Liddell, recognized members of the 
James gang, came to Gallatin, and that Jesse there announced 
the purpose of the trip to be to kill Major Cox and myself, him 
for killing Anderson and me for attaching Jesse's mare; that 
thereupon Clel said to him, "Major Cox is my father's old 
friend, he saved my life once, and as long as I live no man 
shall harm a hair of his head ; but I don't know or care a damn 
about the other fellow" ; that as my wife and I were taking an 
evening walk Jesse and his men lay concealed behind a hedge 
fence, and that her presence alone prevented Jesse from making 
good his threat in 1871 ; and that Clel Miller had later met the 
Major and told him the complete story. Clel was afterward 
killed in the bank robbery at Northfield, Minnesota. 

In August and September, 1883, the trial of Frank James 
for the murder of Conductor Westfall near Winston, in July, 
1881, was held at Gallatin. The State was ably represented 
in court by William D. Hamilton, John H. Shanklin, William 
H. Wallace, and Joshua F. Hicklin, with Marcus A. Low and 
myself as its special counsel in the background. We two were 
Republicans and the others all Democrats. The defendant was 
equally well represented by William M. Rush, Jr., John F. 
Philips, Charles P. Johnson, John M. Glover, Christopher T. 
Garner, James H. Slover, and Joshua W. Alexander. Major 
Hardwicke, Senator Ingalls, and many other distinguished law- 
yers and laymen flocked to the town from all over the West; 
the suppressed excitement was intense, the evidence such as 
would have convicted any other man ; and, while the arguments 
of counsel to the jury were superb, I have always believed 



32 Recollections 

the closing of Mr, Wallace the strongest I ever heard in court. 
It was a royal combat between powerful leaders of the bar. 
Frank James was acquitted. In my office that evening, che 
trial Judge, Cliarles H. S. Goodman, of Albany, said to m.c: 
"Well, it 's all over, and I suppose I am the only man living 
that has no right to swear about that acquittal." The State 
confidently expected at least a hung jury, but the only juror 
we all believed dead against us throughout the trial proved 
to be the only man who at first had the nerve to vote for a 
conviction. Since then, I have been certain that no lawyer 
knows anything about a petit jury. 

Among the "cloud of witnesses" at that trial was Dick 
Liddell, who there fully corroborated every statement of fact 
that Clel Miller had made to Major Cox years before. He also 
said that in leaving Kearney, Missouri, on his last visit to his 
old home there and just before his taking ofif at St. Joseph in 
1882, Jesse James had made another attack upon me. This 
was new and explained another life chapter; for the fact was 
recalled that upon our return from Kansas City to Gallatin, the 
Rock Island train upon which my wife and I were passengers 
on that evening was fired into just as it pulled out of the town 
of Kearney. The incident was this : I was smoking in the for- 
ward car, while my wife was back in the chair-car. Old 
"Hank" Rice was the conductor in charge. The train stopped 
at Kearney station, and just as it started up eastward again, 
at the St. Joseph public road crossing, someone fired a pistol 
shot through the smoker window at my right and scattered its 
glass over my face. Seeing the commotion in the smoker, Mrs. 
McDougal came into my car and sought the cause. I assured 
her that some careless boy had only thrown a stick into the 
car ; that no harm was done, etc. To her solicitous questions 
I answered that the James boys knew nothing about nor had 



Lawyers 33 

aught against me, and finally had "Hank" take her back into 
the chair-car and finished my cigar. While I always suspected 
the truth of the matter, yet I never knew who fired that shot 
until Dick told me at Frank's trial that Jesse James was the 
man. Liddell then further told me that on one occasion, along 
in the '70s, Jesse James and he had ridden into Chillicothe, 
Missouri, for the express purpose of robbing its principal bank , 
that he and Jesse went into this bank under the pretext of 
changing a large bill, but really to spy out just how they mighi- 
best turn the trick, when, upon a door leading from the bank 
into a law office, Jesse espied the words, "Frank Sheetz, Law- 
yer" ; that in speedily going from there over to the old Brown- 
ing House, Jesse had said that he and Sheetz were reared on 
adjoining farms in Clay County; that he would be recognized 
and reported if Sheetz saw him, and that they must get out of 
the town at once for that reason. It happened that I was then 
in that town attending court, was at the moment at work in 
that law office, and that Jesse and I dined at the hotel on that 
day directly across the table from each other ! So nothing 
came of that expedition, and "Mr. Howard" (Jesse's then 
assumed name) and his companion left town just after dinner. 

Just prior to his death in 1895, I went from Kansas City 
over to Liberty and there spent two days with my old friend 
Major Hardwicke, and naturally we again talked over the past 
and the breaking up and dispersion of the James boys gang. 

Everyone knows that a person may be beastly intemperate 
in eating, drinking, sleeping, working, etc. ; but Americans hab- 
itually employ that word as one which relates alone to drink. 
In that sense, out of the many temperance movements of earth, 
the only one of which I ever heard that had practical brains 
behind it was that of Liberty many years ago, as told me by 
the Major: A bare dozen of Clay County speakers knew that 



34 Recollkctions 

law-makers could never legislate virtue or temperance or mor- 
ality into a people, and that this was simply a matter of educa- 
tion. So they signed a short compact, under which each mem- 
ber agreed to go to any point in that county, whenever called 
upon to do so by their executive committee, and deliver an ad- 
dress on temperance; and the sole object of the talk was to be, 
and was, to convince the people that it did not pay to drink in- 
toxicants. IMeanwhile the members of the society found no 
fault with the drinker, signed petitions for and encouraged 
saloon-keepers, but made their speeches just the same. The re- 
sult was, that in less than one year after starting the movement 
the last surviving saloon in that county closed its doors for 
want of patronage! There was no fight on or quarrel with 
anyone, but the people were simply educated into the belief, in 
that time, that it didn't pay to drink, and quit. 

The same man was also authority for the statement that, 
here on the border where the war feeling always ran high, 
during all the civil conflict, the literary and musical socie- 
ties and the Masonic bodies of the city of Liberty never once 
missed holding a single meeting on account of the war. Fel- 
lowship was higher than partisanship. 

PLATTE CITY : Elijah Hise Norton, who now spends 
his time quietly on his broad acres near the town, has been, as 
he still is, a most remarkable man to me. A native of Ken- 
tucky, soon after completing his education he came to the then 
far West, where he has been respectively the Judge of the 
Circuit Court, a member of Congress and of the Constitutional 
Convention of 1875, and for a dozen years afterward of the 
Missouri Supreme Court. At the age of eighty-five he walks 
around his farm and into town every week-day, makes fre- 
quent visits to adjacent cities, preserves all his old-time interest 
and enthusiasm in public affairs, and works and acts like a 
youth. 



Lawyers 35 

John E. Pitt was known to the older members of the 
"bar as "Bully Pitt of Platte," and just why I never knew. He 
was of the old school as both man and lawyer, and I never 
saw him in court without the swallowtailed blue coat with 
trass buttons, high collar, and stock of decades agone. He filled 
many public offices, was a soldier in the Mexican War, and on 
the Confederate side in the late war. 

His best advertised speech (and he liked nothing quite so 
well as to make one) was delivered in the General Assembly 
of ^Missouri along in the early '50s. This was his "bobtailed 
bull in fly-time" effort, and when I was a boy it was reproduced 
in full in England as a sample of American oratory ! 

Then at the opening of the railroad bridge which spans 
the Missouri River at Atchison, Kansas, about 1874, Colonel 
Pitt went across the river and there made another speech in re- 
sponse to the sentiment "The Platte Purchase," in which he 
said : "Why, ]\Ir. President, I have so long lived in the Platte 
Purchase and am so familiar with all its territory that you 
might blindfold me, put me in a box-car, start me eastward 
over this magnificent bridge, and throw me off that car at any 
point between the jNIissouri River and the Iowa line, and I 
would light within ten feet of where I had either shot a deer 
or taken a drink." 

Just before his term ended as Prosecuting Attorney of 
Platte County, along about 1878, Colonel Pitt announced that 
he would spend his fev; remaining years in Colorado. True, he 
was largely "a b' God and b' guess" lawyer, as he said ; his in- 
dictments were generally quashed and no convictions stood to 
his credit, but everybody was fond of the Colonel, and he could 
make a speech. As I was somewhat handy with the pen, the 
visiting members of the Platte Court selected me to prepare our 
farewell to the good Colonel. His picture as an eminent law- 



Sf) Recollections 

ycr and gentleman was drawn with a free hand, and signed by 
his Honor and every member of the bar, including visitors: 
witli streaming eyes the Colonel read all this at the opening of 
court the next morning, and made the most effective speech 
heard for many a day in that court. In closing, he made a 
beautiful prayer for the writer and each of the signers of our 
farewell address, and proclaimed the fact that with such a rec- 
ord he could not think of deserting "old Platte County." He 
had that letter reproduced in lithographic form, again opened 
up his law office, and at last, from his beloved "Platte Pur- 
chase," calmly hied him away to his home in — Heaven, I trust. 
Over florid and fervid in his time even, the Colonel was still 
eloquent and powerful in public speech ; his voice was like the 
roar of many waters, and he was one of the last survivors of 
a now vanished generation. 

PLATTSBURG: James H. Birch, Sr., was a Virgin- 
ian by birth, a newspaper man and politician in earlier life, a 
member of the Supreme Court of Missouri for many years, 
but everywhere an accomplished, scholarly, courteous gentle- 
man, and a public speaker and orator of rarest ability. In 
1874 my law partner was a newspaper man and wrote many 
able editorials in his paper in favor of sound money, or the 
gold standard, in all of which Judge Birch heartily concurred. 
He was then an old man, and, mistaking me for my partner, 
I\I. A. Low, he called me aside one day, while attending circuit 
court in his town, and highly complimented my firm and cour- 
ageous course in my newspaper on the money question. His 
error was ajjparenl ; but, as I was in hearty sympathy with 
him as well as my newspaper partner on that question, I did 
not undeceive him. He was a gentleman of the old school ; al- 
ways wore a broadclotli coat with big brass buttons, and lived 
at his home on the hills, away from the city; for, true to the 
traditions of his early training in Virginia, Judge Birch died 



LaWVI;RS 07 

in the belief that no gentleman ever lived in any other way. 
RICHMOND: Alexander Wii^liam Doniphan in 
later life was a banker in Ray County, but when I knew him 
he was still mentally and physically a giant. The story of his 
military exploits in the Mexican War has been so well told 
in "Doniphan's Expedition," originally written by General 
Hughes and later recast by Mr. Connelly, that no useful pur- 
pose could be subserved by here repeating it. Early-day Mis- 
souri lawyers have told me that when in full practice at the bar 
General Doniphan never had more than a single point in any 
case and never made an argument to court or jury longer than 
twenty minutes. But with a powerful appeal, of which he was 
absolute master at the bar, in closing he always threw a flood of 
light upon the pivotal point of his case that rarely failed to 
win. He was of Kentucky birth and breeding; but for many 
years was the Colossus and leader of the Western bar and 
people. 

Austin A. King was one of the earlier Judges of the 
Circuit Court and for four years the Governor of Missouri. 
The last time I met him was when he made an argument in the 
U. S. Circuit Court at St. Louis in the early spring of 1870. 
He died soon afterward, from the effects of that speech, and 
now rests in the old cemetery of his town in Ray County; but 
m his day he was a man and lawyer of great power and in- 
fluence in the State. 

George W. Dunn was also a Kentuckian by birth and in 
his earlier years in the West was a circuit attorney, but for 
many years was a Judge of the Circuit Court of the Ray, Clay, 
Platte, and Clinton circuit. He did not keep abreast with the 
law literature of his day, but his knowledge of equity procedure, 
pleading, and practice was more extensive than that of any 
other jurist I have known. The longest legal argument I ever 



38 Recollections 

made occupied a full day and a half in his court in Clinton 
County, in a then celebrated equity case, in 1884; but we won 
before him, as well as in the Supreme Court, 

Judge Dunn latterly labored under the erroneous impres- 
sions that he was a great ladies' man, could play the fiddle 
(there were no violins in his day), and write poetry. In my 
library out home now reposes a volume of his verses, with an 
elaborate presentation to me in the proper handwriting of the 
author. The cost of that book was $3.00 to me; but I was 
then trying a case before him and he was well stricken in 
years. His "Temple of Justice," however, is in fact not only 
creditable, but a strong poem for anyone. Knowing that its 
reader would construe any applause following the reading of 
this poem as a personal compliment to his elocution, while the 
Judge would take it all as a tribute to his own genius as a 
writer, I arranged, at one term of his court in Clinton County, 
to have these verses quoted in the argument of a distinguished 
lawyer to the jury, and for such applause. After referring to 
his Honor as "the noble old Roman who now occupies this 
bench" (and Dunn looked the part), the lawyer quoted "The 
Temple of Justice" with powerful effect. As per program, 
the bar and the audience at once broke out in greatest applause. 
Lawyer and jurist were alike pleased. But after the cheers 
subsided, the Judge, smiling like a cat that had just eaten the 
family canary, looked over the crowd, gently rapped on his 
bench, and mildly said, "Order, gentlemen ; order !" 

At the sessions of Judge Dunn's court in Platte County, 
he and I always occupied the hotel parlor with two beds, and 
many a night he kept me awake reciting his poetry and playing 
his fiddle. But I was there to try cases, and found long ago 
that few investments pay better than to keep the Court in a 
good humor. Hence I was always at "attention." But at 



Lawyers 39 

last the lights went out and the ancient jurist was laid away 
by members of his home bar, a pauper prince, yet to all who 
knew him a great man and good. 

SPRINGFIELD: Thomas A. Sherwood was born m 
the South, but spent his mature years in this Stale, and was on 
the Missouri Supreme Court bench for thirty years follow- 
ing his election to that high office in 1872. He has written 
some law-books of great value, is one of the ablest scholars 
at our bar, rather fond of politics and Bourbon whisky, and 
the head and front of our Supreme Court in my day. 

ST. JOSEPH: Stephen S. Brown, the leader of the 
St. Joseph bar, is a native of New York, served in the Union 
Army in the big war, and spent his maturer years m north- 
west Missouri, first locating at Maysville, and later at his pres- 
ent home. When he was practicing at Maysville and I at 
Gallatin, only 25 miles away, it was not unusual for him to 
drive over in the night-time (we then had no cross-country 
railroad), rout me out of bed, and talk law to me till daylight. 
After breakfast, we went together to my office and examined 
the books. One time, with his inimitable drawl (which I could 
not forget if I would), and after talking over some knotty legal 
proposition for hours, Brown solemnly said: "Mack, if I knew 
as much law as you do, I 'd be the best lawyer in the West." 
That was probably true; for he is by nature a great lawyer 
and man, but sometimes does not know just what the courts 
have held. 

Among the many good lawyer stories told me by Brown, 
the following is reproduced : 

"I have forgotten the name of the lawyer involved, and 
only remember that he was the senior member of a firm of 
distinguished patent attorneys, that he wore a Prince Albert 
coat 'all buttoned down before,' and that his face was orna- 



40 Recollections 

merited with a long, flowing beard. Judge Offcault was ap- 
pearing for the complainant in an important patent case and 
our hairy friend represented the defendant, the case being 
tried before Judge McPherson in Ottunivva. After Judge 
Offcault's partner had opened the case, the lawyer whom I 
ha\ c described, with much noise and gesticulation, made an 
argument five hours and a half long, which completely tired 
out liis listeners, including the Judge of the court. Judge 
McPherson very vividly described Judge Offcault's appearance 
when he rose to reply, lie was eighty-odd years old, very 
heavy and feeble, and after slowly and painfully rising to a 
standing position, he said : 

"'If the Court please. I am reminded by the gentleman, 
and by his earnest and ])rotracted argument, of an ancient 
legend of the Black Forest of Germany. 

" 'The story runs that long before the time of King Gun- 
ther, when the great forest was the abode of gods and giants 
and fairies, there lived in its depths a hairy giant, who had fash- 
ioned from the beeches and firs of the mountains and the en- 
trails of the gigantic animals of that period an immense fiddle, 
which, as it lay on its back, reached all the way from the 
Rhine to the Neckar. Its bow was still longer, and weighed 
thirty tons. 

" 'When our giknt was in a musical mood, he would attach 
sixteen yoke of oxen to the bow and start them to pull it 
across the strings. As it moved the great fiddle roared and 
shrieked, the mighty trees swayed and bent before the wind 
that came from its shaking strings, the gods cowered in terror, 
the great beasts hid themselves in their dens, and the little 
fairies flew and danced like thistledown in the storm. It took 
three weeks to complete the journey of the bow, and when it 
stopped, the echoes of the storm wailed and muttered among 



Lawyers 41 

the mountains for two weeks longer. Then the noise ceased, 
the wind died away, the gods roused themselves and proceeded 
with their usual harmless festivities, the beasts came out and 
gently grazed or dined on each other as was their wont, the 
little fairies fluttered to their sylvan retreats and resumed their 
dance, the great fiddle with its bow and the oxen disappeared, 
and the hairy giant sat down and congratulated himself on 
his music. If the Court please, I submit the cause for the 
complainant.' " 

Together Steve and I have been in many a hard-fought 
legal battle, in none of which did he ever fail me, and I here 
say of him, as great John Hay said of his friend Jim Bludsoe: 

"He never flunked and he never lied, 
I reckon he never knowed how." 

James N. Burnes came from his native State of Indiana 
to Missouri while yet young, and for some years prior to his 
death resided at and represented the St. Joseph district in Con- 
gress. His legal arguments before court and jury were always 
brilliant, strong, and good, while his persuasive eloquence be- 
fore the people and his strikingly handsome form and resonant 
voice gave a rare charm to his every utterance. His politics 
and policies during and for some years subsequent to the 
troublous times of the Civil War were not at all times com- 
mendable ; but he amassed both wealth and fame as lawyer 
and business man, and when he died in 1889, the Western world 
stood still and honored his memory. He presided over the 
"Liberal" wing of tlie Republican Convention of Missouri in 
1870, and, as no one else could, solemnly uttered the sentence, 
"Love is stronger than hate," in beginning his opening speech. 
In that convention 1 was a "Regular" and supported McCIurg, 
while Burnes was a "Liberal" and assisted in the nomination 
of B. Gratz Brown for Governor of our State. Since Kis 



42 Recollections 

nominee carried Missouri by a majority of over 41,000, 1 have 
never bet a penny on any election. That resuU satisfied me 
tliat at least one American knew absolutely nothing about an 
election until after the votes were counted. However, our 
political differences made no sort of change in existing friendly 
relations as together we journeyed homeward. A train-wreck 
at East Leavenworth and the killing of three passengers offered 
only a temporary check to his unfailing good humor, and then, 
as always, he charmed me by his wit, wisdom, and eloquence. 
When we finally reached St. Joseph on September 3, 1870, we 
found newsboys running everywhere with Herald extras, not 
bigger than one's hand, announcing the historic fact that Na- 
poleon III. had on that day surrendered at Sedan, and that 
ended the Franco-Prussian War. Twenty years ago, while in 
the performance of his duties at Washington, the brilliant, 
brave, and brainy Burnes suddenly died in the harness. Then 
an unusual tribute was paid to his memory in the Senate and 
House of the United States Congress in the many addresses 
delivered in both houses. 

Jeff Chandler was a member of this bar when first we 
met; but, having a refractory stomach, has since practiced the 
law in St. Louis, Xew York, Washington, and California. He 
has long been a powerful speaker to courts and juries and de- 
servedly ranks high as man and lawyer. Just out of college, 
he migrated from a Xew England State to St. Joseph early in 
the Civil War, and, on account of his ability as a writer, was 
for a time employed as a reporter on the Herald of that city. 
At a time when politics, u ar, and country all seemed trembling 
in the balanccb, Major Bittinger, then editor of that paper, was 
suddenly called away to look aftei some important public mat- 
ter ami left young Chandler in editorial charge. Fortunately, 
he reached the offitc early iht following morning, before the 



Lawyers 43 

paper was printed, and found that, after wrestling with various 
problems all day, Jeff had written and printed only a little 
dinky school-boy editorial on "The ]\Iind" ! But he became 
a great lawyer, and I recall now that he was a guest at our 
house in Gallatin about 187 1, and there prosecuted Mrs. Shaw 
for the murder of her late husband. In a most solemn, im- 
pressive and blood-curdling closing, he there said: "Under 
the evidence, three propositions have been equally well estab- 
lished : first, that Amaziah Shaw once lived; second, that 
Amaziah is now dead ; and third, [pointing his quivering fore- 
finger directly at the defendant] there sits his murderer !" The 
effect upon all was electrical. Just how or when I next got 
back to earth I don't recollect. 

WiLLARD P. Hall, Sr., was born at Harper's Ferry in 
Virginia, there worked under his father in the Arsenal gim- 
smith shop, came to St. Joseph early, while a private soldier in 
Doniphan's Regiment in the ^Mexican War wrote that model 
bill of rights which today governs New Mexico as well as the 
basic laws of that Territory, and while yet in the performance 
of duty at Santa Fe was elected to the Congress of the United 
States. Was at \\'ashington, with Abraham Lincoln and other 
distinguished Americans; but after four years there, he re- 
sumed the practice of the law. Was later the war Governor of 
Missouri, and fully satisfied all the people in every position he 
ever occupied. Modest and unassuming at the bar, he rarely 
talked law over twenty-five minutes, and never addressed the 
jury unless the exigencies of the case demanded it. At all 
times and places a student, thinker, and worker, his marvelous 
personal and professional success ended only with his life 
in 1882. 

From Governor Hall I learned early in my lawyer life 
the vital importance of brevity and the single issue. Both with 



44 Recollections 

and against him in many a case, I have often heard him say 
to opposing counsel : "I know that you can prove 'this, that, 
and the other proposition' ; and you know, or can easily ascer- 
tain, that we can prove 'so and so.' Now, our vital disagree- 
ment is this [clearly stating it] ; let us agree on all these other 
matters and direct all our proof and argument to this one 
pivotal proposition." This method of his was always accepted, 
the trial was both simplified and shortened, and no rights lost 
to litigant or lawyer. 

At the creation of the Missouri Bar Association, here at 
Kansas City on December 29, 1880, by common consent we 
made Governor Hall its first President; he soon thereafter 
accepted and appointed committees, but did not preside at the 
annual meeting held in St. Louis in 1881, on account of his 
last illness. 

Together he and I were guests of the old Willard Hotel at 
Washington in 1878, when the Governor told me one morning 
that Roscoe Conkling was to orally argue the Stewart case in 
the U. S. Supreme Court that day, and asked me to go up to the 
court-room with him; but he added that while he had read 
Conkling's brief in the case and was satisfied that he was 
wrong, yet he would make a good argument. So we went up 
and heard Conkling, and, as usual, he made a wonderful state- 
ment no less than a surprisingly able argument. After the case 
was over and as we walked down the Capitol steps, I said: 
"Governor, from my student days I have always looked upon 
you as our ablest and best Missouri lawyer, and in all these 
years have followed and concurred in your legal opinions; 
but my judgment now is that Conkling is right." With char- 
acteristic frankness and justice, the Governor replied : "By 
God ! I think so myself now ; but he is wrong on paper." Conk- 
ling won his case. 



Lawyers -^5 

At that same term of court the Justices gratified my 
State pride most highly by telhng me that, in the unanimous 
opinion of that bench, Willard P. Hall, of Missouri, was up 
with and among the first half-dozen lawyers who argued cases 
at that bar. 

Ben Loan represented the St. Joseph district in the Fed- 
eral Congress when I first came to Missouri, and could have 
filled any office with honor and creditably ; he had been a gen- 
eral in the Union Army, and withal was an able and useful 
lawyer and citizen. He was an earnest worker, wrote a most 
beautiful copperplate hand in his busiest moments ; and in each 
of the many land cases I heard him try, always relied on the 
statute of limitations and a lawful fence ! 

Henry AL Vories was a member of the ]\Iissouri Supreme 
Court, elected in 1872, resigned four years later, and soon there- 
after died. He was lacking in scholarship, but up to this good 
hour I have never known his equal in the trial of either a civil 
or criminal cause. Able, adroit, fearless, effective and suc- 
cessful as he was in the trial courts, his record on the Supreme 
bench cannot be as highly regarded. 

When he was the candidate of his party for the honorable 
position of Supreme Judge, a young and scholarly lawyer of 
St. Joseph (one of the brass knobs on the temple of Justice) 
was criticising him for his lack of learning, and, among other 
things, said to Governor Hall and myself: "Why, he says 
'whar' and 'thar' and 'boss' in his arguments." That was too 
much for Hall, who had known Vories as a Kentucky gentle- 
man, friend, neighbor, and lawyer; and to the young fellow 
the great jurist turned and said: "And have you noticed, too, 
young man, that when Henry \'ories says these things, he is 
always answered in the same language by the court and jury?" 



46 Recollections 

Insect powder would not have exterminated that young fellow 
more quickly. 

ST. LOUIS: Wells H. Blodgett has for many years 
been the general counsel for the Wabash Railroad Company, 
and a more thorough lawyer, or more nearly perfect man, I 
have never known. 

During the war he was a gallant officer m the Union 
Army, at its close was mustered out as the colonel of his 
regiment, then represented his people as a senator in the Gen- 
eral Assembly of Alissouri, but has long resided at the metrop- 
olis of his adopted State, and knows and tells about the per- 
sonal and political history of his country with greatest accu- 
racy, learning, and ability. He read and studied law in the 
office of his brother, Henry W. Blodgett, of Chicago, for many 
years the U. S. Judge for the Northern District of Illinois, and 
there often met, knew, and became the personal and political 
friend of the great Lincoln. In his private library at St. Louis 
Colonel Blodgett now has probably the best collection of books, 
pictures, and statuary of the Emancipator to be found in this 
country. No lawyer of my acquaintance so earnestly insists 
upon knowing the exact facts of any legal proposition, and he 
often says : "I must see and have the whole scheme in my 
head before forming my conclusion." 

Colonel Blodgett has long been a student of all questions 
relating to the abolition of American slavery, and respecting 
this question, at his request, I examined our border State and 
Federal laws, and on November 22, 1906, wrote him, in sub- 
stance, that the Congressional Enabling Act of December 31^ 
1862, required that West Virginia should, by its new Constitu- 
tion, provide that "the children of slaves born within the 
limits of this State after July 4, 1863, shall be free"; and then, 
after fixing an age-limit when certain other slaves should be 



Lawyers 47 

free, provided that "no slave shall be permitted to come within 
the limits of this State for permanent residence." 

President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, by its af- 
firmative recitals, had no effect upon those within the border 
slave States, and applied only to Negro slaves in those sections 
of our country that on January i, 1863, were in "actual re- 
bellion against the United States." 

By its ordinance of July i, 1863, the Missouri Convention 
provided for the emancipation of all our slaves on July 4, 
1870; but eleven months prior to the adoption of the thirteenth 
amendment to the Federal Constitution, our Constitutional 
Convention declared by ordinance that all our Missouri slaves 
were free on the date of its passage — viz., Janurary 11, 1865. 

1 then closed that letter to the Colonel in these words : 

"As Maryland, then a Roman Catholic proprietary Colony, 
was the first of our American Colonies (if not indeed the first 
law-making power of earth) to establish and guarantee to all 
persons religious freedom and toleration by law (A. D. 1649; 

2 Kent 36) ; so, over two hundred years later, Maryland was 
the first of our Southern States to abolish the curse of human 
slavery. After prohibiting slavery prospectively, Section 24 
of the 'Declaration of Rights' of the Constitution of Mary- 
land closes with the words : 'and all persons held to service or 
labor as slaves are hereby declared free.' This Constitution, 
by its terms, went 'into efifect on the first day of November, 
eighteen hundred and sixty-/oHr.' Hence the truth of history 
demands that in these two respects the highest honor must be 
awarded to 'Maryland, my Maryland'." 

Charles D. Drake was for long years one of the close 
lawyers of the West, wrote his great work on Attachments, 
never made even a ward speech in St. Louis without his man- 
uscript thereof in his hand, became the foremost member of 
the Constitutional Convention of 1865, was later a member of 
the U. S. Senate from Missouri, and resigned to become Chief 
Justice of the U. S. Court of Claims at Washington, where he 



48 Recollections 

died years ago. Personall}' a lovable man in private life, but 
a most bitter partisan in public. In it all, a great, earnest, hard- 
working student and lawyer. 

GusTAvus A. FiNKELNBERG was a clear-headed, kind- 
hearted German student, thinker, and worker who first attained 
prominence as the head of the Judiciary Committee in our State 
Legislature, in 1867, was later a member of the lower House of 
Congress, the candidate of his party for Governor of Missouri, 
and later in life the U. S. Judge for the St. Louis district. In 
his busy life he found time to write law-books, attend the ses- 
sions of the Missouri Bar Association, and as an honest, con- 
scientious man resigned his office because his health was giving 
way and he could no longer do full justice to his fellows. His 
death occurred only last year. 

Henry Hitchcock was prominent in his day as both man 
and lawyer, and as President of the Missouri Bar Association 
in 1881. He was a bigger and better man than his brother, 
the late Ethan Allen Hitchcock, Secretary of the Interior under 
McKinley and Roosevelt; both were born in the South, but 
lived in St. Louis, and were lineal descendants of the great 
Ethan Allen, who, as the leader of the Green Mountain boys, 
is said in history to have demanded the unconditional surrender 
of Fort Ticonderoga "in the name of the Great Jehovah and 
the Continental Congress." 

Warwick Hough is a native of Virginia ; he early moved 
to Missouri, married, and entered the Confederate Army as 
the Adjutant-General of this State, and fought for the South 
through the war. Later he was a member of the Kansas City 
bar. served for ten years on the Supreme Court bench of his 
adopted State, removed to St. Louis, and was for six years a 
Circuit Judge there. As student, scholar, writer, soldier, gen- 



Lawyers 49 

tleman, lawyer, jurist, he still stan<ls as a very prince among 
those who know him. 

John W. Noble first attained national repute as an Iowa 
soldier in the War, and was mustered out with the rank of 
brigadier-general. Thereafter he became one of the foremost 
of the many able St. Louis lawyers, and acceptably filled the 
ofiice as Secretary of the Interior under President Harrison. 
He is- now in full practice at his home, and, though white of 
hair and whiskers, but few of the younger generation of today 
care to measure swords with him in a legal contest. 

Roderick E. Rombauer is another German student and 
worker of the St. Louis bar. After many other public positions, 
for a dozen years or more he was a member of the Court of 
Appeals of his city, and is justly ranked as one of the cleanest, 
strongest, and best law writers to be found anywhere. 

TRENTON: John Henderson Shanklin was born in 
Virginia, but migrated to Missouri in early manhood, served 
with honor as an enlisted man in Doniphan's Regiment during 
the war with Mexico, became a lawyer, recruited and com- 
manded a Union regiment in the Civil War, was a member of 
the convention called by Governor Claiborne F. Jackson to 
take the State out of the Union in 1861, and of the Constitu- 
tional Convention of 1875, and passed away at his home in 
1904, honored and beloved by all. 

For the ten years ending with my removal to Kansas City 
in 1885, he was the head of the law firm of Shanklin, Low & 
McDougal, and I have learned but recently that during this 
time we had more causes before the Supreme Court of the 
State and won a higher percentage of cases than any other 
law firm in the State. We were the division attorneys of the 
Rock Island and Wabash Railway corporations, and in ad- 
dition had a large private practice. In 1881 Colonel Shanklin 



50 Rkcollections 

was made president of the GalHnas Mining and Smelting Com- 
pany of New Mexico, and of the Missouri Bar Association 
the following year, in both of which offices I succeeded him 
some years later. At the solicitation of the State Bar Asso- 
ciation, I delivered a memorial address in honor of this great 
and good man and lawyer at the annual meeting held in St. 
Louis. This is reported and printed in full in the proceedings 
of that meeting, in 1904, at pages 164-9, and to that address 
I must now refer for some of the facts relating to a long and 
useful life. But to it I now add a few incidents in the Colo- 
nel's lawyer life. 

An old client of the Colonel once consulted him about 
some domestic difficulty, and as he went out of the office I 
overheard Shanklin say: "The only thing I know of for that 
sort of trouble is the shot-gun remedy." Soon after this, I 
strolled up to the Elmore House for luncheon and on the street 
met the Colonel's client, with blood in his eye, a shot-gun in 
his liands, searcliing tlie town for his man. Hastening back 
to the office, I informed my senior of the situation. He rusned 
out and spent the remainder of that day convincing his wrathy 
client that he did not intend his suggestion just that way, and 
that the law must take its course. 

On another occasion the Colonel was suddenly called out 
of town and I was left alone to try, the next day, the land 
case of Smith I's. Smith — though that was not its style. I got 
our client in the office that night and was endeavoring to as- 
certain just how the principal witness on the other side stood 
for truth and veracity among his neighbors. Finally my 
man, who was slow of thought and speech, got the prop- 
osition tlirough his hair. Then he took deliberate aim at 
the sawdust spit-box about fifteen feet away, nearly filled it 
with his tobacco juice, and slowly and deliberately answered : 



/) 



Lawyers 51 

"Wall, no; he is mighty shaky that a-way out in the forks of 
the River; any man that would look 'Johns' in the face and 
then say he is a honest man would deny the handwritin' of 
God." 

In many years of practice, for various reasons, I always 
shunned all sorts of criminal cases, and personally have tried 
but two murder cases. These I went into because Colonel 
Shanklin asked it. One of these was for the killing of a deputy 
sheriff early in the '70s, and came to my county on change of 
venue. Mordecai Oliver and the Colonel were most excellent 
criminal practitioners and I was employed to assist them be- 
cause the trial was to be in Daviess County. My seniors sent 
me over to the jail to get the exact facts of the killing. I got 
them. In the most cold-blooded manner our client there il- 
lustrated just how tliat murder was perpetrated, but I found 
out that the State could not prove whether the defendant or 
his brother had fired the fatal shot. As my seniors deemed t'.ie 
defendant not guilty, I refused to disclose the facts, and told 
them I would procure an acquittal if they would permit me 
to conduct the defence. This they reluctantly consented to do, 
for I was young, had no experience in criminal practice, and 
the case looked dangerous. The prosecution opened the trial 
to the jury with an elaborate statement, to all which I only 
replied : "The defendant simply pleads not guilty ; hear the 
proof." Not one of the many witnesses for the prosecution 
testified to the vital point, and to each I only said, "Stand 
aside," At the close, I offered a demurrer to the evidence. 
The Court asked if I wished to argue it, and I said, "No." 
The suspense was awful, the life af a man was at stake; my 
associates trembled, but I never batted an eye nor opened my 
mouth. While his Honor was mentally going over the evi- 
dence, I wrote out a verdict. The Court at last gave my de- 
murrer; as a juror, old Lewis Snider signed the verdict, and 



52 Recollections 

the defendant went free. But he was guilty as hell, and I 
knew it. lie at once left the State, and I have here in my desk 
today his note for my fee of $500, not a penny of which was 
ever paid. Retributive justice? Maybe so. In entering my 
plea of guilty at this late day, my only extenuating circum- 
stance is the zeal and enthusiasm of youth, and then our client 
had the constittitional right to his defense ; but that was my 
last murder case. 

As attorneys for the Rock Island, the Colonel and I were 
defending the Company in a trial for damages in a collision on 
the road between one of our east-bound trains and a country- 
man driving a buggy at a crossing. Our defense was that the 
statutory signals were duly given by the approaching engine, 
and that the driver failed to stop, or look^ or listen, and we 
had witnesses to establish all this. Major George H. Hubbell 
had been in the buggy and swore that the plaintiff was driving 
along in the usual way ; that, while driving down hill, they 
were struck by the engine at the crossing and the buggy re- 
duced to kindling-wood, etc., but incidentally mentioned the 
fact that he (Hubbell) had heard the whistle sounded. As 
usual, 1 was examining the testimony while my senior took 
notes, offered suggestions, etc. When the Colonel heard the 
statement that the whistle had sounded, he urged me to in- 
quire where the Major and the train were at that instant. I 
protested that the jury would draw the inference; but the fact 
is, I distrust cross-examination always, and feared the truth. 
As Shanklin kept on urging the question, I yielded and put it. 
To the Colonel's surprise. Major Hubbell answered : "Well, 
sub, as near as I could calculate, sub, when that whistle 
sounded, I was just about on a level with the top of'* your 
smokestack, sub, and death and destruction was a-starin' us 
in the face." 

At the meeting of the Missouri Bar Association at 



Lawyers 53 

Sedalia in 1882, and when Colonel Shanklin was elected as 
its President, the State Association of School Teachers was 
assembled at the same town. This wide difference between the 
two professions was then in evidence at all their hotels: 
teachers in groups earnestly discussed the way to spell words, 
teach classes, etc. ; while lawyers never mentioned "shop," but, 
with cigars lighted and feet elevated, talked only of good things 
to eat and drink. 

Colonel Shanklin, Charles H. Alansur, Mordecai Oliver, 
and John E. Pitt were all in full practice at the North Mis- 
souri bar when I located there forty-three years ago; and 
with these lawyers in mind, aided by a somewhat vivid im- 
agination, many years ago I responded to the toast of "Ye 
Lawyer of ye Olden Time" in this fashion : 

"From history and tradition alike we learn that in the early 
days of the Republic courts and lawyers were held in higher 
esteem than they are today. One of the reasons for this was 
that in those days the plain common people of the country 
absorbed from lawyers and preachers the larger share of their 
meager education. To procure this they were compelled to 
and did attend churches and courts with a regularity, industry, 
and interest that would today appear most astonishing. In 
this way the pioneer lawyer and preacher became the two 
most powerful factors in moulding, guiding, and controlling 
public thought and action on the frontier firing-line of our 
civilization. 

"When, at the close of the Civil War, I came west and 
located at Gallatin, there were still to be found in the active 
and profitable practice of our profession up in Xorth Missouri 
quite a number of these old-time, honest, earnest, rugged, and 
able lawyers, who still 'rode the circuit' and were the fore- 
most men of that country. 

"So rapid has been the advance of our civilization, and so 
many changes have been wrought by the terrible hand of Time 
in the law practice, that I doubt if there could now be re- 
produced, anywhere in this broad land of ours, the court-room 
scenes that were familiar to every lawyer who then practiced 
on the circuit. 



54 Recolli-ctions 

"I have in my mind's eye now four of these old-timers. 
Their hopes, ambitions, and methods were not unHke. Each 
knew that to win a case before the jury and the people he 
must make a powerful speech, and neither ever failed to do so. 
Each commenced his speech in a slow, conversational tone. 
Warming up, he first removed his coat, then his vest and col- 
lar went, winter and summer alike. He then unbuttoned his 
shirt-front, exposing his rugged, hairy, manly bosom, and thus 
stripped for the fight, he poured hot shot and shell into the camp 
of the enemy for hour after hour. The loftiest flights of 
sarcasm, invective, and illustration were his ; now he cooed 
like the sucking dove, now roared like the lion ; his sneering 
face was at times a breach of the peace, his manner an assault ; 
yet to 'his Honor upon the bench' he was always respectfully 
courteous, and for his own greater glory never failed to refer 
to the opposing counsel as 'my most distinguished and learned 
friend on the other side.' The trial ended, court adjourned, 
the two opposing counsel, with the judge between them, all 
arm in arm, wended their way from the court-house to the 
tavern and there spent a good part of the night in playing 
cards (solely for amusement, never gambling) and drinking 
good old whisky from a jug that one of them insisted should 
be 'stopped only with a corn-cob.' The truth is that for some 
years after I came to the bar, I attended the courts with these 
dear old-timers up in North Missouri, and found no difficulty 
in falling into some of their ways. They were short on books, 
but long on principle; knew Blackstone and Chitty and Kent 
'from kiver to kiver' ; and while I have since known more ac- 
complished and bookier lawyers, yet I have not known, nor 
shall I ever know, any who could more ably or more clearly 
argue a question of law from principle; nor yet those who 
could make more convincing arguments to the jury or court 
than the stalwart old-time lawyers of the Grand River country 
with whom, as student and young lawyer, it was my good 
fortune to associate for years after casting my tiny craft upon 
the boundless ocean of Jurisprudence." 

Stephen Peery was also from Virginia, but in early 
life came to this State ; he became an able and brilliant lawyer 
at the bar of the Grand River Country, an eloquent public 
orator who always said things, filled many important public 



Lawyers 55 

offices; and himself closed the scene out in Arizona about ten 
years ago. Wretched health and despondency laid the lion low, 
and caused the ending of one of the wisest, bravest, and best 
of men. 



LAWYERS OF OTHER STATES. 



Illinois. 



Emory A. Storrs, of Chicago, was one of the strongest 
and best of our American lawyers. A magnificent dresser, a 
rather vain but accomplished gentleman, he was a shining light 
in public assemblages as well as in the courts in the days that 
are gone. Many of the methods of the man are now recalled, 
but of them all, three instances impressed me : At one time 
he was trying an important case at his home, in which a big 
merchant of that big, busy, bustling city was one of the wit- 
nesses against him. Noting the way Storrs confused, abashed, 
and crucified other witnesses by his merciless cross-exam- 
ination, this merchant frequently repeated : "Just wait until 
I take the stand and watch me mop the earth with this great 
lawyer." His turn came at last, and, with the easy confidence 
of the witness who knows just what and how he is to say 
things to opposing counsel, he turned to Storrs at the close 
of his examination-in-chief and looked and waited. He and 
Storrs were great friends at the club, and had been for years. 



56 Recollections 

After a long pause, Storrs blandly asked: "What is your 
name, please?" He answered. Storrs said: "Spell it, please."' 
and made him spell it all out letter by letter. Then, as quietly, 
Storrs said: "That is all, sir; stand aside." 

The plea which Storrs made in the Chicago Convention 
of 1880 for the renomination of General Grant was the 
masterpiece of logical eloquence of that great aggregation of 
stalwart Americans, and it was not his fault that Garfield won 
the prize. 

Upon his return home, after a year's study of our men 
and their methods, I now recollect that a thoughtful British 
statesman of the time said that of all the great Americans he 
had here met, Emory A. Storrs and Benjamin Harrison stood 
at the head of the class of the first half-dozen. 

Thomas F. With row, of the same bar, was the general 
counsel of the Rock Island Railway during many of the years 
I have been engaged in its law department ; and no great law- 
yer enjoyed more than he the luxury of casting aside the cares 
of his high position and indulging in his earlier reminiscences. 

Withrow was a native of my own country, but in youth 
went to Iowa, and for years practiced at Des Moines; was the 
reporter of their Supreme Court and the author of its earlier 
Digest. Whether on himself or another, a joke was always a 
joke with him, and his hearty laugh at his own expense is 
with me now, as he once told me the story of a country 
client of his partner who haunted their office for days. This 
man then urged Withrow to take the particular case ; but that 
gentleman was always too busy to talk with the client. When 
at last he did get his ear, Withrow said : "I don't understand 
this ; my partner has always looked after all your cases in court, 
and why don't you go to him now?" Slowly and deliberately 
the countryman answerel: "Now, the God's truth is, Mr. 



Lawyers 57 

Withrow, you must take and try this case, because your partner 
is too good a man to handle it." 

The last case we argued together was here in the U. S. 
Circuit Court, and, as usual for him, Mr. Withrow made a 
concise and clear argument. Judge Arnold Krekel was on the 
bench, and while a brusque and blunt German student, no man 
living or dead was kindlier. But in his closing Mr. Withrow 
laid down some proposition to which his Honor dissented, and 
in his usual curt way he said things. With quiet and silent 
dignity the speaker gathered up his books and papers. As he 
was about to leave the bar. Judge Krekel said : "Why don't 
you proceed with your argument, Mr. Withrow? The Court 
is listening." Then came from Withrow this parting shot, in 
tones of mingled sarcasm and contempt : "I decline to argue 
any case before any court that can neither comprehend a law 
point nor treat a member of the bar as a gentleman." As we 
passed from that court-house, with a twinkle in his eye and 
in a reassuring voice, Mr. Withrow said: "Don't be alarmed, 
Mack ; we are right on both principle and authority ; I said all 
I wanted to, anyway ; Krekel will decide the case our way." 
And he did. 

Ed. S. Wilson, of Olney. Here is another lawyer who 
knew enough to quit the profession and amass a fortune. 
After successfully following the law for years m Illinois, and 
holding a State office, Ed retired years ago and has since lived 
like the lordly gentleman he is. A trifle thick of hearing, he 
now uses his ears as his apology for dropping the law, travel- 
ing through Europe and America, and having a royal good 
time everywhere; but the true reason is probably found in the 
fact that he simply grew weary of the game. Then, wealth 
begets leisure, study, reflection, and an appalling indifference 



58 Recollections 

to the daily struggle at the bar. But through life he continues 
his study of law and literature, and thinks all the time. 

A dozen years ago he and two of his brothers, Luke V. 
and Medford B. Wilson, were sued in different jurisdictions 
on identically the same stock subscriptions and notes to a bank, 
and each for a large sum. Among many other lawyers, I was 
defending. Upon careful investigation, Ed S. Wilson and I 
concluded that upon principle and right there could be no re- 
covery. The precise point had not then been ruled on, and we 
had no end of trouble in our vain efforts to convince our co- 
counsel that our contention was and must be correct. Against 
our joint protest, after years of litigation, the two brothers at 
last compromised for comparatively trifling amounts ; but Ed 
continued to fight his case. The U. S. Supreme Court passed 
upon our exact proposition not long ago, and in the final trial 
of his case Ed won out. 

Among other sins of omission and commission, this stal- 
wart gentleman is a sort of a Populist, a free-trader in politics 
and a free-thinker in religion. Just now he is engaged with a 
bishop of the Church in a newspaper discussion of the Bible 
question : Did the Hebrews of the Old Testament believe in 
the immortality of the soul? As each knows as much or as 
little a.-i the other, whatever the profession and argument may 
be, no one really knows anything about the subject, and the 
outcome of the wrangle can have but one result — bad bloou. 
Still, thinkers must do, think, and say things, or the millennium 
will be upon us unawares. 

Kansas. 

Marcus A. Low, Topeka, was born in Maine, reared in 
Illinois, and, because of ill health, spent a part of our war period 
in California, where he and Bret Harte and Edwin R. Sill 



Lawyers 59 

wrote and tnougnt and dreamed and then organized the Golden 
Gate Literary Society. Soon after the war he located in Mis- 
souri, where for years he owned and wrote editorials for the 
Hamilton News, and in 1874 formed a law partnership with 
the writer. Our firm was shortly increased ; the partnership 
became Shanklin, Low & McDougal, with offices at Trenton 
and Gallatin, and thus continued until my removal to Kansas 
City in 1885. Within a year thereafter Mr. Low removed 
to Topeka, and has ever since there held the position of gen- 
eral attorney for the Rock Island Railway Company, with 
jurisdiction over all their lines of road south and west of Iowa. 

Mr. Low enjoys the unique distinction of never seeking 
or filling a public office. He knows more law, and better where 
to find it and how to apply it, than any other lawyer I ever met, 
and, singularly enough, knows more of everything else than of 
law ; but, absorbing and easily becoming master of all else, it 
was strange to me that he should, as he did, grow thin and pale 
and sick in his efforts to learn to play the violin. That was 
the only thing he ever failed in. 

In the forty years I have known and been associated with 
him, he has admitted to me just once that he had erred on the 
law. He may err, but was never known to admit it except that 
one time. 

He never gives advice unless asked for it, and seldom 
even then. He is known as "the silent man," and talks less 
on business and can say more on paper in fewer words than 
any one. 

When the Rock Island Railway was being constructed 
through Kansas, a delegation of the big men.of the short-grass 
country was sent to see Mr. Low about the location of the 
depot for their town. The nearer they got to Topeka the 
smaller they became, while Low got bigger all the time. Upon 



60 Recollections 

arriving at Rock Island headquarters the now frightened dele- 
gation urged their spokesman to go up-stairs and confer with 
tlie Company, alias Low, and report. He agreed to do so, and 
was gone up to the office a long time. When at last he re- 
turned, this spokesman said : "Gentlemen, all I 've got to say 
is, that Low will never quarrel with his wife; the damned fel- 
low won't talk back." Urged by the committee to repeat all 
that he and Mr. Low said, this spokesman finally answered: 
"Well, I said so and so, and all that Low said was, 'Good 
morning' when I first went in and 'Good day, sir,' when I 
came away." 

William H. Rossington, Topeka. Last year this great 
lawyer and sweet singer passed to the beyond at his home. 
When first he went to the Kansas bar, now thirty years ago, 
and largely through his infiuence, the young lawyers of Topeka 
organized, and for many years maintained, a class for the study 
of the rules of procedure and practice in chancery cases. So 
apt (lid they become that Federal judges have assured me 
they were often compelled, in that practice, to interfere and 
protect the outside members of the bar against the skill and 
learning of Topeka lawyers, and that this was especially true 
as to Rossington and George C. Clemens. To many this class 
of learning is a sealed book, and if met face to face on the 
public highway, some of our profession would not recognize 
the difference between equity procedure and the plan of 
salvation. 

Mr. Rossington not only knew and practiced the law, but 
had at his tongue's end, and was the rarest person of his day 
in the ready solution of, every problem relating to the origin, 
history, and application of the curious in law, history, and 
literature. 

Benjamin F. Stringfellow, Atchison, came from Vir- 



Lawyers 61 

ginia; he was one of the early attorneys-general of Missouri, 
but in Territorial days removed to and died in Kansas. In 
my early practice I often met him in the courts of the counties 
of Clay, Clinton, Platte, and Buchanan, and to me he seemed 
a marvel in the trial of a cause, while some of the clearest, 
strongest, and best arguments I ever heard in the Supreme 
Court fell from the lips of this great orator and lawyer. 

He told me of his being called before the senators and 
lepresentatives of the South, at Washington, and of his speech 
explaining to them just how Kansas might well be made a 
slave State, by sending thither their slaves in active charge 
and control of men who would work and see to it, too, that the 
negroes worked. The South sent its slaves in the '50s, as 
Stringfellow advised, but with and in charge of them a lot of 
young bloods who preferred to drink whisky toddy, run horse- 
races, and fight game-cocks. The world knows the result. 

At the opening of the Atchison railroad bridge across 
the Missouri River, about 1874, many speeches were made by 
men who knew things. Among other things. General String- 
fellow solemnly said: "I hear much talk about repudiating 
the payment of the bonds which this city issued to raise the 
money to construct that bridge. That 's all wrong. Why, Mr. 
President, I am here to say that in thirty years I have not 
drawn a solvent breath, nor scarcely a sober one, yet I 'd cheer- 
fully murder the man who plead either fraud or limitation 
to a suit on any one of my notes of hand." 

John P. Usher, Lawrence. After a legal career of un- 
usual usefulness in Indiana, and especially as Secretary of the 
Interior in the Cabinet of Abraham Lincoln, Judge Usher 
located at Lawrence as the general counsel of the Union Pa- 
cific Railway, and there, at his home, I spent a day with him, on 
some now forgotten law business, along about 1873. He then 



62 Recollections 

impressed me, as he always did in the courts, as a lawyer and 
man of great power and ability. In going from the railway 
station to his house on that day. the bus-driver advised me to 
walk over the bridge across the Kansas River, as the water 
was then very high; but, thinking it safe, I said, "No, I 'U ride 
over," and did. But just as I was freshening up a bit at the 
old Eldridge House, a servant rushed in and said the bridge 
had gone out. I was the last person to cross it. Later on Usher 
died at Lawrence; but when one recalls that the town was 
founded in 1854. to make Kansas a free State, its record of 
strife and bloodshed in the later '50s, as well as its scholarly 
people, the reason of this old fighter and patriot for locating 
there becomes apparent to all who knew the man. 



Kentucky. 

George W. Craddock, Frankfort. While waiting in his 
city years ago to orally argue the Lamkin will case in the Court 
of Appeals. I became acquainted with their unusually strong 
bench and bar, and among them, Craddock. This old-timer 
was still a boy at the bar — in fact, at several bars. One night 
he was in my rooms at the Capital Hotel, among other guests, 
and the subject under discussion, along with toddies, was 
heraldry. Judge Alontfort, of their Circuit Court, was there, 
and knew the meaning, history, and intention of every heraldic 
design of earth. Craddock knew much of it, while I was the 
silent novice. Early the following morning Craddock invited 
me to accompany him over to the Court of Appeals to hear 
him argue a land case, and I went. En route he remarked that 
maybe he had taken just one toddy too many in my rooms 
the night before, and to steady his shattered nerves we re- 
paired to and stopped at a drink emporium on the way. He 



Lawyers 63 

ordered "a Sampson with the liair on," while I took the uni- 
versal nip of that country — a toddy. Having no sort of idea 
of his tipple, I noticed that in the bottom of a tumbler Crad- 
dock first put in half an inch of white sugar, then filled his 
glass with old Bourbon and smilingly stirred it with a spoon 
until the admixture was complete; then, with unexampled 
satisfaction, he drained his glass. His tipple had the strength 
which the Book says Sampson had before Delilah severed his 
locks, and to Craddock the name was appropriate. We went 
into court. By the time his case was called, Craddock's nerve, 
brain, and the law were all his, and a clearer, better, stronger 
legal argument I never heard. 

William Lindsay, Frankfort. Among other offices filled 
by this native of Virginia, ex-Confederate, and great lawyer, 
were those of Judge of their highest court and U. S. senator 
from Kentucky. We first met in Judge Craddock's law office 
at Frankfort, and were introduced by our mutual friend. Pat- 
rick Upshaw ]\Iajors. Lindsay then weighed near 300 pounds 
and his face was strongly suggestive of jowl and greens, while 
I was thin and spare. My mother was a lineal descendant 
of the first American Lindsay, and Judge Lindsay and I were 
of the same blood and kin ; but he did not know this. Looking 
quickly from the Judge to myself, Majors said: "Pardon me, 
gentlemen, but from certain lines in your faces you two must 
be of blood kin." The relationship was soon traced in a 
definite and satisfactory way. Then Judge Lindsay said that if 
we indeed were of kin, I might have heard the story of the clan. 
To me his story had been familiar family history from my 
earliest recollections, and was, as repeated by him, substan- 
tially this : From very early Colonial days the American Lind- 
says were Southern planters; that, following the custom of 
time and country, these Lindsays always lived in their own 



64 Recollections 

houses, on the hill and in the country, and did not believe that 
any gentleman ever could live in any other way, as the town 
was made for and fit to be lived in by no one save shopkeepers, 
blacksmiths, and others who had to work; that in those days 
it was for generations the custom of the male members of 
our clan to remain at home, ride around and superintend and 
direct the work on their plantations all the week, until Sat- 
urday morning came around; that then they rode on horse- 
back to their county seat or other trading town, first trans- 
acted their weekly business, and that done, they always drank 
toddies until the shank of the evening, when they started home- 
\\ard, and then, if they found they could get into the saddle 
without assistance, they always knew they had not had enough, 
and went back for another drink ! 

The typical Virginian is an aristocrat; their Kentucky 
descendants are democrats; and up to the day of his death 
William Lindsay possessed all the best traits of both. 

Patrick Upshaw Majors, then a scholarly, retired mem- 
ber of the same bar, was to me a marvel in his way. Without 
a moment's hesitation he knew and cheerfully gave the his- 
tory of any family that settled upon any one of the English- 
speaking isles in the past three hundred years, and knew more 
about heredity and human faces than anyone else I ever met. 
Many a time he pointed out persons and told me just how 
eacli was the direct descendant of someone who had done 
a given great deed either across the water, or in Colonial days, 
oi- in some war in this country. And in one of the many 
unheard-of family histories he gave, he once told me just 
how I was of blood kin to Zerilda, the mother of the notorious 
James boys of Missouri 

History says that Santa Anna, the once distinguished 
general of the Mexican Army, was a native of Jalapa, Mexico; 



i 



Lawyers 65 

but Majors once told me of a long talk he had at Frankfort 
with Santa Anna while that gentleman was en route to Wash- 
ington at the close of the war with Mexico in 1848, in which 
the two agreed on this: That the mother of Santa Anna was 
of the clan Lindsay, married a man named Sanders, and the 
two lived together at the mouth of the Kentucky River in 
that State, where Santa Anna was born; that his mother died 
at his birth ; that soon thereafter his father fled from Ken- 
tucky to Mexico with the infant, still in arms ; that at Jalapa 
he was adopted and reared by a Mexican family; and that, 
just prior to his death, his father had confessed tliat he was 
charged with a Kentucky crime, and then told Santa Anna 
the strange story of his life. 

Another curious story that this ruthless destroyer of 
the written once told me was that at one time he and his 
brother Sam owned and edited The Yeoman, a Frankfort 
newspaper; that they had a private library of thirty-five 
thousand volumes, were well to do, and felt it their duty, 
as well as pleasure, to entertain at their Southern home 
all newspaper men who came to Frankfort ; that among 
other correspondents they were dining one evening just after 
the battle of Perryville, in 1862, was a young, serious- 
faced, silent correspondent of a Northern newspaper, whom 
my friend closely studied. At the close of the dinner, and 
in the library, Judge Majors said to this young man that 
from his face he must have been born, or was closely related 
to, a family of his name that used to live in that State up at 
Nicholasville. The young man protested that this could not be 
true; that there was not a drop of Southern blood in his veins; 
that he was intensely loyal to the Federal Government and 
had never been in the State until sent there as a war corre- 
spondent ; and closed by asserting that his ancestors of his name 



66 Recollections 

came to this country in the "Alayflower." From the library the 
judge first took a vokune containing an alphabetical list of 
all who came over on the "Mayflower/' and next a book giving 
a like list of all who came to America in the next sixty years ; 
but in neither appeared the name. This omission was quickly 
accounted for by the young man upon the theory that the two 
books were compiled later and that their writers were not 
familiar with or careful of their subjects. Before retiring for 
the night, however, the young gentleman called Judge Majors 
aside and apologized for his persistence, urged his loyalty to 
the principles he advocated, and said it would injure him with 
his people and paper if the truth were known ; but then con- 
fessed that he had been born at Nicholasville, Kentucky. The 
name of that brilliant young war correspondent was and is 
Whitelaw Reid. 

While I could never be quite sure as to the accuracy of 
his stories, yet he dwelt in memory upon the good old fighting 
times when every Kentucky gentleman prided himself on being 
"half a boss and half an alligator"; while for hours I listened 
enchanted to personal reminiscences of his old Frankfort 
friends, Theodore O'Hara, Richard Menefee, Dr. Sanders, 
Henry Honore, Charles Julian, Elijah Hise, Ben Hardin, Ben- 
jamin Gratz, John Mason Brown, Thomas Lindsay, and many 
others whom I never knew. Truth and fiction from his lips 
were always alike interesting to me. 

Maryland. 

About two years after my admission to the bar, Mis- 
souri clients sent me to Hagerstown. Maryland, to look after 
their interests in a large case that had lain there in chancery 
since early in the '50s. The title of the case is immaterial, but 
it was known as "the Long will case" and was numbered "4444, 



Lawyers 67 

equity." From the bushels of papers in it, I soon saw that gen- 
erations of lawyers had been in the case, and that, among 
others, nearly every member of that bar then represented some 
angle or side of it. Although abolished many years ago in 
England, yet the rules of practice once prevailing in its High 
Court of Chancery are now followed m Maryland, as in our 
Federal Courts, and under its terms and conditions every law- 
yer of that State seemed an adept in all the rules of procedure, 
pleading, and practice in that branch of the lex scripta. 

After long and close work, our case was at last all un- 
■earthed. recast, revived, and won. Our share of the net pro- 
ceeds aggregated many thousands oi (.ollars. In our many 
legal wrangles at the Hagerstown bar, tlie lawyers here named 
all appeared in that case, and as now recalled their chief char- 
acteristics were tliese: 

WiLLi.AM H. Schley was an old-fashioned Southern gen- 
tleman and an excellent lawyer, m addressmg court or jury, 
but always preferred to make an apt Latin quotation to win- 
ning his case. His law office was on the ground floor of the 
main street, and at the close of each argument his unfadmg 
custom was to repair to his consultation-room and from an 
old-time jug there take at least one good long solemn drink 
of "Maryland rye, suh ; the choicest in the land, suh." He 
came originally from Frederick, in that State, and more than 
once told me of a little stone house tnat had been used for the- 
same purpose there since early Colonial days; of how the ncn 
planters of the nearby valley of the Cumberland had for gen- 
erations daily started to the town of Frederick, but could never 
get past and invariably remained all day at the house where 
such excellent drinks could always be had; and that during 
all the years this old stone house had borne the suggestive 
name of "Speed the Plow. ' 



6S Recollections 

Louis E. McComas was then an able and brilliant young- 
lawyer, was later U. S. senator from his State for a full term, 
and (lied down at Washington only recently as a Justice of 
some Federal Court. 

Henrv Kyd Douglas was then the most gallant and hand- 
some gentleman of the Maryland bar and one of its foremost 
jjublic orators; when I knew him, he had been on the Con- 
federate side of the Civil War and was once an honored aide 
de camp on the staff of General "Stonewall" Jackson. 

Minnesota. 

Ell Torrance, Minneapolis, went from his father's farm 
into the Union Army, came westward when the fighting ended, 
located in iMissouri, became a Judge at Linneus in 1872, was 
active and enthusiastic as a young Republican, made speeches 
lor liis party, went as delegate to many conventions, served 
as chairman of the Congressional Committee, and moved to 
Minneapolis in 1881. Except for this removal, our life lines 
ran exactly parallel; we had lived in the same district, not 
many miles apart, and each had visited the home of the other 
many a time. In all these years he was both great and good, 
and I was sorry to see him go. In his new home up north 
he soon became deservedly prominent and popular. 

So in 1902 I was proud to see my friend again as he rode 
at the head of the column as the Commander-in-chief of the 
G. A. R., and again watch him on the grand stand at Wash- 
ington, alongside of General James Longstreet, late of the 
C. S. A., with other dignitaries, as he reviewed that wonder- 
ful procession of our war veterans; carrying in their ranks 
the remnants of many a battle-scarred flag that we had fol- 
lowed m boyhood, as once more the boys of 1861-5 paraded 
the streets of the Nation's capital down at Washington At 



Lawyers 69 

such a time it seemed strange that another thought should 
come up, but it did. For I reflected upon the days of our youth 
and early manhood; of how we had shouted ourselves hoarse 
as we told the people of IMissouri the old, old story, that a 
given election was by far the most important of our times. 
That same cry still goes up, and maybe the young still believe it, 
as we did long ago. But as the hair grows thinner and grayer 
the average American begins to learn, and by 1902 we two 
realized the truth and wisdom of the immortal sentiment — 
"God reigns and the Government at Washington still lives." 

In the summer of 1882, my wife and I spent our vacation 
on a tour of the northern lakes, en route stoppmg and visiting 
at Toledo. Put-in-Bay, Detroit, Duluth, the Falls of Mmnehalia, 
and rounding up at the Nicollet Hotel in Minneapolis. Care- 
less and improvident always, while alone in the world I was 
indifferent as to whether friends should lay me away or the 
potter's field be my final resting-place ; so money never counted, 
while the other kind of trouble sometimes hurt, and the sole 
question was: Is the cash at hand to pay for the particular 
thing I want — not need? My wife, however, had more prac- 
tical sense, and at her suggestion we there took an account of 
stock, only to find that our joint cash capital was ninety-five 
cents. She was dismayed, for there we were, in their best 
liotel as if millions were in our pockets, strangers in a strange 
land, over one thousand miles from home. My own normal 
condition was to go broke away from home, yet someway I 
always got back, and that situation rather amused me. So 
I lighted a fresh cigar, took up Al Blethen's daily paper, quoted 
that Biblical story about never having seen "the righteous 
forsaken, nor their seed begging bread," and was proceeding 
to enjoy life in my own philosophical way, when Mrs. Mc- 
Dougal happened to cast her eagle eye just across the street 



70 Recollixtions 

from our rooms and called my attention to a window sign 
which bore the legend, "Ell Torrance, Law Office." Both 
had overlooked the fact that he lived there, nor did we know 
that succor was so near. But the timely discovery of this 
old friend settled everything ; we soon met ; our monetary em- 
barrassment was ended, and together with our wives we fished 
and boated for days up at Lake Minnetonka. 

Earlv in 1884 I determined to remove from Gallatin to 
some larger city, where I could pursue my profession and at 
the same time remain at home and become acquainted with 
our chiklren. A close and careful investigation was made of 
then existing conditions, with this rather surprising result: 
ninety-four per cent of our greatest American lawyers were 
tiansplanted from country towns to the great cities, and of 
these, ninety per cent were originally farmers' boys ; while 
the money end of litigation was either upon the decrease or 
at a standstill in all our larger cities save New York, Kansas 
City, and Minneapolis, where it was on the increase. To 
further look over the Western field, wife and I again went 
northward and again were the guests of Judge and Mrs. Tor- 
rance, at Minneapolis. While our wives remained in the city 
discussing religion and tea and dress goods and shopping day 
after day, the Judge and I were ofif to the lakes on another 
fishing expedition. There we were guests at a hotel kept by a 
lop-eared corpse (other name not recalled) and his wife, and 
often .vondered why that fellow did not have the decency to 
die, so that his buxom and pretty wife could remarry some 
lusty >oung brute and live happy ever afterward. Within a 
few weeks after we left, this young tavern-keeper did become 
an angel, and on account thereof his widow promptly com- 
mited suicide! Why? Dios sabc (God knows). But neither 
of us ever understood women anyway. Concluding that Min- 



Lawyers 71 

neapoHs must always rely upon its wheat and lumber mterests, 
and that there could be no limit to the growth and development 
of Kansas City, we decided upon a home here. While we 
were guests of the Torrances, the National Encampment of the 
G. A. R. for 1884 was held at Minneapolis. But, as Kipling 
says, "that is another story," and must here come under the 
title of "Soldiers." 



New Mexico. 

John Y. Hewitt, White Oaks, is today a clever, level- 
headed, learned lawyer. He was born and reared in Ohio, 
went to Kansas and was there an official of early Territorial 
days, served throughout the Civil War in the 2nd Regiment 
of Kansas Cavalry, and thence went down onto the New 
Mexican frontier in 1879. He has since then lived at White 
Oaks, and has there been a lawyer, mining and newspaper 
man, as well as Department Commander of the G. A. R., and 
is now a Democratic member of the Territorial Council from 
a Republican district. 

Ever since his residence there I have been part owner 
of the properties of the Gallinas Mining and Smelting Com- 
pany in his county, and since 1881 I have spent many of my 
summers at and about our mines, with headquarters in Judge 
Hewitt's home town. During all these years I have known 
him rather closely as a professional, social, genial gentleman. 

When I first went into the country. White Oaks was a 
busy, bustling mining town, with more good, honest, honor- 
able, up-to-date, men and women in it than any other place of 
its size I have known. Then it was ninety-five miles to the near- 
est railroad; now the nearest station is only twelve miles away. 



72 Recollections 

at Carrizozo ; but the town is neitlier so large nor so prosperous 
as it once was. 

I spent much of the spring and summer of 1902 at White 
Oaks, for I was far from being well. In their kindness and 
attention such old - timers as Hewitt. Ozanne, Sager, Bull, 
Paden, Spence. Taliaferro, Cavanaugh. and a lot of others, 
were always unremitting; and, when able, I joined "the gang" 
at 4 p. M. sharp every afternoon for a social game of cards 
in the back room of the Little Casino, a saloon there, then 
kept by Captain John Lee. We all wore blue cotton over- 
alls, and if anyone gave a thought to aught but the game, I 
never suspected it. And sometimes we were joined by a bright 
little Frenchman, who lived in a little cabin just up the gulch, 
and whenever he made a particularly good play, it was his 
custom to exclaim, "Sair, it do beat heil how Chesus lofe me!" 
While this frog-eater knew the game and played it, the strong- 
est hand in the bunch was played by old Dick Cavanaugh. 

Soon after I left there in 1881, Emerson Hough struck 
the town and practiced law for two or three years at White 
Oaks. This native of Loudoun County, Virginia, sailed his 
bark on the troublous sea of our profession for only a few 
years, and then had the good sense to quit the law and en- 
gage in making money by writing books. He wields a facile 
pen and has written many good books. I have read them all ; 
but his one novel that always interests me is his "Heart's 
Desire," for that was and is White Oaks. Hough's descrip- 
tions there given of people and climate are true to life and 
place, and for years I have been familiar with almost every 
character he brings upon the stage, and with every mountain, 
arroya, ranche, and plain mentioned. Nothing can be finer 
than his Tom Osby — a real name and character of that coun- 
try—and I still believe the Dan Anderson of that book in the 



Lawyers 16 

main portrays the life and history of my lawyer friend Hewitt, 
while the original still swears that this character is purely 
fictitious. With his wife, some four years ago, Hough revis- 
ited White Oaks and wrote up in Field and Stream his per- 
sonal experiences and his old friends there, in a most charm- 
ing manner. 

Not in good health again, as the direct result of hard 
close work in an Osage Indian case at Washington, I returned 
to New Mexico last year, in charge of our youngest daughter, 
Florence. After leasing our mines up in the Gallinas Moun- 
tains, we visited Corona and Carrizozo, and then spent the 
summer at White Oaks as the guests of Judge Hewitt. He 
is the principal citizen of the place, and owns much stock in 
the Old Abe Mining Company there, with other property all 
around him. His good wife has for years lain in the White 
Oaks cemetery ; they had no children, and this soldier, law- 
yer, and jhilosopher now lives all alone in his big adobe man- 
sion on the side of old Carrizo Mountain and in sight of his 
law offiice, with books and papers and pictures in every guest- 
room, while the mountain view from his front porch is an 
unfailing delight. The Judge and Florence prepared our break- 
fast and luncheon there at the house, but in the evening we 
dmed over in town at the Hotel Gallacher. Hewitt daily either 
drove or walked me to regain my strength; and such moun- 
tain horseback rides as my daughter had there are never to be 
forgotten. Friends drove us on visits to many of the ad- 
jacent towns ; but, with a retinue of servants and friends. Judge 
Hewitt gave us our most pleasant outing. This consisted of 
a nine-days drive of over two hundred miles through the moun- 
tains, aroun 1 Nogal Peak and Sierro Blancho, camping out 
every night, in that soft climate, and en route spending two 
profitable and (to daughter) novel days among the Mescalera 



74 Recollfxtions 

Apache Indians at their Reservation on the head-waters of the 
Rio Tularoso. After this trip, my daughter and a young gen- 
tleman, to whom she had pHglited her hand long before, sud- 
denly determined to marry. His name is Ralph M. Roosevelt. 
As he was all right in all ways and Florence was twenty-three, 
there was no possible objection to the match, and what was I 
to do? He wanted to marry my beloved baby, and for that 
reason I felt like using a shot-gun on him, but did not. So, 
late in the afternoon of September 7. 1908, they were duly 
married in Judge Hewitt's parlors at White Oaks, and he and 
I alone witnessed both the ceremony and marriage certificate. 
That night, as per program, the Judge gave them a big party, 
and introduced the bridal couple to the surprised guests; all 
danced till "the wee sma' hours," while I quietly withdrew and 
went to bed at midniglU. The town and its people were always 
good to me ; 1 like to visit them, and so, accompanied by my 
good wife, I went back there this year, and Mrs. McDougal 
and I were again the guests of my friend. 

On last Memorial Day, May 30, 1909, we three first re- 
paired to the cemetery near by and solemnly decorated the 
graves of loved friends who will rest and sleep there until the 
judgment day, beneath the shadows of mighty mountains ; 
and tlicn. from place and scenes so familiar to her, we wrote 
and mailed to daughter Florence, at her new home in Spring- 
field, Illinois, this letter: 

"Beloved : 

'"From where the rays of Heaven's sweet sunshine first 
kiss the crest of peaceful Patos, beam their noon-day warmth 
on frowning Carrizo, cast their light on majestic Lone, and 
lastly bestow their good-night benediction upon the golden 
crown of wondrous Baxter; and from every caijon, arroya, 
gulch, and mesa around 'Heart's Desire,' two old soldiers of 
the Republic, for whom youth's cannon and musket are now 
forever dumb and war's sword sheathed, on this sacred day 



Lawyers 75 

of their holiest memories waft to you, across mountain, desert, 
plain, prairie, and stream, on this the twenty-fourth anni- 
versary of your happy birth, their warm, gentle, tender, and 
loving congratulations. 

"Faithfully, Henry Clay McDougal. 

"Ofificial: John Young Hewitt. 

"Emma F. McDougal, 

"A. D. C." 

The average man, who works without ceasing and thinks 
of nothing else, may make and save money; constant reading 
and reflection may bring the world's knowledge to anyone; 
but wisdom is always rare and blesses only the few. Love 
and cherish him who combines wealth, knowledge, and wis- 
dom, for he is seldom found. His name is John Young 
Hew' 

New York. 

Louis C. KrauthoFF. From a poor, struggling German 
boy, when first we met at Jefferson City, by his unaided efforts, 
close application, and sterling integrity, this young man has 
come up through all the grades of the law to his present lofty 
position at the bar of the Nation's metropolis. For more than 
ten years he was a member of the Kansas City bar, and here 
did such excellent legal work that he became the recognized 
and actual leader of our National Water Works Company 
in its long-drawn-out and hard-fought litigation with this city. 
His splendid abilities called him from here to Chicago, and 
thence to the ultimate home of so many of our greatest Ameri- 
can lawyers — the city of New York. 

Wheeler Peckham, of the same bar, in private Hfe was 
one of the strongest and tenderest of men; but in court he 
was never happy unless in a row with the Court and with 
opposing counsel and witnesses. His battle royal with Mr. 



76 Recollections 

Justice Brewer in the waiting-room of the dinky little way- 
station at North Ferrisburg, Vermont, in 1895, remains in 
memory now as one of the heaviest engagements I ever wit- 
nessed. Brewer had a summer home near this station. We had 
defeated Peckham's side upon some question in our Water 
Works litigation, and from that decision he wished to appeal. 
Upon that particular question the Justice leaned our way, and 
I had but little to say. Peckham fought for his appeal ; Brewer 
opposed it. The combatants were intellectual and legal giants 
and their masterful fight of over an hour was at the time 
printed in full in the papers of the country. When it ended, 
Peckham and I walked the platform waiting for the belated 
train, and with the pride and enthusiasm of youth he there 
gave me an account of his early legal struggles up in Minne- 
sota and ultimate triumph in the State of his birth, and when 
the train came, we went together to New York. 

During Cleveland's second term as President, he nom- 
inated Peckham for office as one of the Justices of the U. S. 
Supreme Court. Not knowing the inside facts, I do not here 
speak by tlie card, but have always suspected the members 
of that Court of convincing the Senate that, on account of his 
known contentiousness, Wheeler Peckham was not a fit man 
for that bench. While not confirmed, yet he died great as both 
man and lawyer. 

Elihu Root, although then a young man, was the gen- 
eral counsel of the old Hannibal and St. Joseph Railway Com- 
pany about the middle of the '70s, and in private, as well as 
in his positions as Cabinet officer and now U. S. senator from 
New York, I have often seen and studied the man and his 
methods ever since. In all places he has demonstrated the 
fact that he is the same clean, level-headed, genial, easily ap- 
proached lawyer, and it is not strange that our people have 



Lawyers 77 

come to esteem him as the strongest and ablest American to- 
day in public Hfe. The reason for this is found in the saying 
of some forgotten sage, that he has always thought and worked 
with his strength of body and mind, his learning, wisdom, 
intelligence, and conscience, and therefore his conclusions must 
be and always are correct. 

In Root's law office in New York in 1876, and in the 
interest of a banker of that city, an able and learned law 
friend of mine, the late George Wood Easley, prepared a 
written opinion upon some question relating to our Mis- 
souri railway bonds. The subject, statute, and decisions bear- 
ing upon the question were all familiar to Mr. Easley and 
myself, and his opinion was short and pointed. Happening 
in that city at the time, Easley asked me what he should 
charge for his opinion. The question seemed so easy, the an- 
swer so obvious, and the opinion so short, that I guessed its 
value off at $100. Easley and I concurred in the belief that 
this sum would be a big fee up in North Missouri where we 
practiced ; but Mr. Root, who had heard our talk, suggested 
that the charge should in no event be less than $1,000, and 
further, that Easley 's client would the more readily invest his 
money if the fee were fixed at five or ten times that amount. 

While in the law practice in the city of New York about 
1878, a young hare-brained lawyer, whose name is here im- 
material, challenged Root to fight him a duel, and in reply 
Elihu only said : "I know of no law that can keep a man from 
making a damned fool of himself." Every effort was made to 
keep the row from the ears of his good mother, who had long 
been ill, lest the sad news should bring on a relapse ; but when 
finally the whole story leaked out, the only comment by the 
placid Mrs. Root was, "I didn't think Elihu would use such 
language." 



yS Recollections 

In 1900. and while he was Secretary of State, Elihu Root 
and Edward Henry Harriman, the railroad wizard of the 
world, who died only yesterday (September 9, 1909), were 
here, the guests of this city. We then gave them a banquet at 
the Kansas City Club, and both not only made speeches, but a 
most favorable impression upon those of our people who had 
not previously met them. 

Oklahoma. 

Timothy John Leahy, Pawhuska. For more than a 
dozen years this fearless young man and able lawyer has 
stood like a stone wall between the Osage Tribe of Indians 
and the inside and outside grafters who have preyed upon 
that naturally truthful and once happy people. He ably rep- 
resented his district as a member of the convention which 
framed the new Constitution of Oklahoma, and, preferring the 
freedom and independence of his lucrative law practice to a 
public office, has lately declined an ofifered judgeship. His ster- 
ling integrity and straightforward course toward people, bench, 
and bar have won for him throughout a vast scope of country 
the title of "Honest John Leahy," and modestly does he bear 
that high honor. He married into the Osage Tribe, and with 
his accomplished wife and four children spends no little time 
in travel, but for the most part devotes his attention to the 
practice of his profession. 

The Osage Tribe of Indians forms the wealthiest part of 
our population, estimated at $25,000 per capita when their 
rolls were closed in 1907, and has had a most curious and in- 
teresting history for many past generations. In 1895 the rights 
of four hundred and forty-five members of that tribe were 
questioned, and in 1907 the rights of many of these, along 



Lawveks 79- 

with others, were again contested upon various grounds. In 
both instances Mr. Leahy appeared for the contestees, as their 
legal representative, while I was on that side for what was 
locally known as "the Omaha family." In the contest of 1896-8, 
with Judge Warwick Hough, of St. Louis, I was often for 
months at Washington; while in the contest of 1907-8 I ap- 
peared for this family of forty-nine members, alone, and 
Leahy then represented nearly all the other contestees. In 
this last contest John and I were much at Washington, and 
worked, studied, argued, and fought together for many months 
there, and naturally I came to know the man and value the 
lawyer. My clients were all mixed-bloods, and through their 
mother were originally members of the Omaha Tribe; but 
through their father all rightfully left the Omahas about twenty 
years ago, and then became members of the Osage Tribe of 
Indians. Hence both contests finally involved their rights 
to their Omaha land allotments, as well as all tribal rights as 
Osages. For them I appeared at Pawhuska, took depositions 
for many days up on the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska, and 
never let up anywhere along the line until both contests were 
won on every issue. Although vast interests were at stake 
and our side finally came out ahead, yet the game was not 
wortli the candle. I made a common mistake in not bearing 
in mind that I was no longer a boy. Leahy was young, active, 
efficient, willing, but his hands were full, for he had more 
clients than I. Being in Washington without associate or cli- 
ent, I attempted to do and did everything myself; my printed 
brief alone covering eighty-seven pages. The direct result of 
this long work and worry was a mental collapse, with broken 
ribs, from which my recovery was painfully slow ; but now 
a year of enforced idleness and illness, travel, rest, and taking" 
the world easier than ever before, have brought me out all 



80 Recollections 

right. It is a pleasure to add that Leahy won all his cases, 
save for one family, and his suit in that case is still pending. 

In days of old, among the unaffected Indians and the early 
white pioneers of Indian Territory, Leahy's country was an 
ideal place in which to camp out and hunt, fish, boat, rest, and 
loaf. But advancing civilization brought them Statehood, ad- 
venturers, good citizens, grafters, education, laws, churches, 
schools, prohibition, game and fish wardens, etc., with all their 
attendant good and evil. So, in silence, with emotions ming- 
ling both hope and regret, I have watched across the border- 
land, as all these changes have come, and have seen the old 
order of things pass away forever. 



Texas. 

George E. Miller, Fort Worth. Trying cases in court 
against and then with a real lawyer is much like soldier life 
in war-times; in either case the man becomes known inside 
and out. So by this time I know George E. Miller well. He 
is a native of Mississippi, but went to Texas early, and when 
first I met him there in Wichita Falls, had just closed a term 
on the bench as their Circuit Judge. With a cloud of other 
attorneys, I was employed in two big bank cases against the 
Wilsons down in the Judge's country, years ago; I went to 
Archer City, and there procured a change of forum in each, 
and later argued questions of law and fact as they came up in 
the U. S. Circuit Court at both Dallas and Fort Worth. Miller, 
along with many other lawyers, was on the other side. With 
the others the saihng was easy; but not with Miller, and when 
he got the floor, the unexpected always happened and I never 
knew what was coming next. He knew the complicated plead- 



Lawyers 81 

ing and practice of that State as few lawyers ever know any- 
thing, and was at home in all phases of these cases. 

Later on, he practiced for some years at the Kansas City 
bar and we were together in several cases; notably in one tO' 
contest the will of one of our wealthy citizens who had been 
called hence. Mild-mannered, genial, and gentle in all other 
places, Miller is a perfect fiend on his feet and argues questions 
of law and fact, to either court or jury, with most consummate 
skill and ability. Unless a halt be called to eat or sleep or nip,. 
Miller thinks, acts, and talks law all the time, and no doubt 
dreams about law cases by night; but when switched from 
that to history or literature, the surprise is that he is also 
equally familiar with that field. When, or how, or where he 
picked all this up, Dios sabe, but it is his. 

Washington, D. C. 

Ashley M. Gould, a native of Massachusetts, was for 
some years an employee of the Department of Justice at Wash- 
ington ; he came West and practiced law for half a dozen years, 
and then returned to the national capital, where he is now 
serving a life sentence as one of the strongest and ablest 
Justices of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. 

While in the Department of Justice, Gould once testified 
for the Government in one of the Star Route trials, which was 
defended by Colonel Bob Ingersoll. On cross-examination 
the Colonel went into details as to Gould's employment, salary, 
and where and how he lived, ate, etc. This so nettled the 
young man that he answered rather flippantly, and at last said 
he "managed to eat three square meals each day." The genial 
Colonel smiled, calmly looked his young friend over, and then 
drawled out: "Ah! Mr, Gould, you don't look it." On the 



82 Recollections 

bench today, the now portly Justice, who was then thin, still 
bears in mind the Colonel's drawl and protects the young 
witness. 

While in Kansas City we w^ere law partners for a time, 
under the firm name of McDougal & Gould, and but few 
have a keener insight into the merits of any question of law 
or fact than Gould. When he left here to return East because 
of tlie settled melancholia of his wife, I fell heir to his old- 
time friend John Stevens. Together we often drove through- 
out this city and down to Independence in the old days, and I 
recall now that on one occassion, on our return home, John 
repeated from memory every word and line of "Locksley 
Hall" and "The Raven," while between-times he talked of his 
beloved friend Gould. 

Sanders Walker Johnston. While this venerable jurist 
was more than a decade my senior, yet, for nearly forty years 
prior to his death, on January i, 1905, he was my running- 
mate at Washington, and was not only a great lawyer, but one 
of the most courdy, genial, accomplished, and scholarly gen- 
tlemen of his time. He was a native of Kentucky, but early 
went to Ohio, and became one of their captains in an Ohio 
regiment in the war with Mexico, in the division commanded 
by General Franklin Pierce. Upon the approval of the Kan- 
sas-Nebraska Bill on May 30, 1854, President Pierce at once 
appointed his war comrade, Johnston, as the first U. S. Judge 
of the newly created Territory of Kansas, and he was later 
associated on that bench with Chief Justice. Le Compte and 
associate, Rush Elmore. Here he served with his usual abil- 
ity for two years, when a disagreement arose over some polit- 
ical decision, and Justice Johnston, without fault of his,, was 
removed from his office by the President. Then he at once 



Lawyers 83 

opened a law office at Leavenworth, Kansas, and continued in 
the practice of his profession there until his health failed him 
in 1864, when he removed to, and thereafter resided at, the 
national capital. Upon his death I wrote a sketch of his life 
for the Kansas City Journal, which is also preserved by the 
State Historical Society of Kansas in its archives at Topeka. 
One of my many pleasures in the old days at Washington 
was the enjoyment to the full of all the good the gods provide 
at Harvey's, Chamberlain's, or Wormley's, with such princes 
as Judge Johnston, Dick Wlntersmith, General Dan Sickles, 
John Chamberlain, Tom Ochiltree, and others of their kind. 

Many personal incidents in the busy and long life of this 
gentle man should be preserved in print; but Judge Johnston 
was so modest that his friends could never prevail upon him 
to undertake it. Among others, however, I now embalm a few 
of the stories as he told them to me: 

Away back while he was yet a young country lawyer in 
Ohio, Johnston journeyed down to Cincinnati for the first time, 
to consult his friend and associate, William H. Lytle, about 
a law case they had together, and accepted Lytle's invitation 
to attend the theater. The great Matilda Herron was on the 
boards in "Camille." As a young man I saw Matilda in the 
same character years later, and her rendition of her part had 
precisely the same effect upon me; the only difference was 
that I was silent, while Johnston was not. Lytle and Johnston 
looked and listened as long as the latter could stand it. Then 
he whispered: "Lytle, this is a damned shame; here we two 
stalwart young men sit and look on while that poor girl plays 
on for our entertainment when she is dying of consumption; 
I can't stand it any longer. Let 's go away now." Lytle 
was an old-stager and knew things, and Johnston's earnestness 
struck his "funny bone"; so he kept on repeating the protest 



84 Recollixtions 

until their section of the theater was in a roar of suppressed 
laughter. Those on the stage were disconcerted, and at their 
request three pohcemen were sent in succession to that part of 
:he house. To each of these Lytle repeated the story, and one 
after the other left laughing. Johnston and Matilda were both 
guests at the old Burnett House, and the next morning he re- 
ceived an urgent request to visit Matilda in her apartments,, 
and did so. The little and then healthy-looking young woman 
introduced herself, and said : "Mr. Johnston, I have heard and 
know all about what you said at the play last night; tell me 
frankly, were you then in earnest and did you mean what you 
said?" Always gallant as well as truthful, Johnston repHed: 
"Madam, as God is my judge, I was never more sincere in my 
life." Calming herself after her tears of joy and triumph,. 
Matilda said : "Unconsciously you have paid me the highest 
compliment of my professional life. I have studied con- 
sumption in most of the hospitals of Europe and America for 
years, and have breakfasted, dined, and supped with that dread 
disease, and now, if I have succeeded on the stage in so de- 
ceiving a strong, sensible young man like yourself, my cup is 
more than full." No matter when or where she played after 
that morning, if Johnston was in town, Matilda always fur- 
nished him with a complimentary box for himself and friends. 
This lawyer Lytle afterward wrote, among many other com- 
mendable verses, the living lines of today found in his "An- 
tony and Cleopatra," and later still fell at the head of his. 
command, as General William H. Lytle, on the field at Chicka- 
mauga in 1863. 

Judge Johnston's first wife was the daughter of General 
Thomas Hamer, who, as an Ohio member of Congress, sent 
Ulysses S. Grant to West Point. There was born to them a 
daughter, named Mary Johnston. Since her early childhood. 



Lawyers 85 

I have taken a personal pride in this girl, because she had the 
sweetest voice to which I ever listened and was for years on 
the operatic stage on the Continent as Marie Decca. The 
Judge remarried afterward, and one summer, not many years 
ago, he was spending a few weeks up in the Blue Ridge 
Mountains with his wife and Mary. Among other places, they 
visited a chapel erected in tlie woods there to the memory of one 
of the great ones of the Old Dominion— Bishop Mead. Notic- 
ing that the chapel seats were upholstered with some material 
unknown to him, the inquiring Judge was informed that they 
were "stuffed" with the priceless writings of that once famous 
divine ! The same party also then visited a descendant of the 
immortal Mead, and were there introduced by their hostess to 
a lady of uncertain age, who, in the courteous language of 
her country, presented this lady as "our guest from Jefferson 
County." While their hostess was out of the parlor for the 
never-failing cake and wine of the valley, for the want of 
something better to say, the Judge asked the guest how long 
she had been up there as a visitor from Jefferson, and, to his 
surprise, received this reply : "Well, suh, I don't recollect ex- 
actly, suh, but I came up heah sometime before the big wahr, 
suh." Mary fell off her chair ! 

Originally their clan came from bonny Scotland, where 
they were known far and wide as "the gentle Johnstons." 
Leisurely wandering over Europe once, the Judge and his 
party were in that vicinity and got off the train at some little 
way-station. Accosting a canny native, the Judge asked if 
any of the Johnston clan lived around there now, and was an- 
swered with, "Hoot, mon ! there is nane ither." 

In private, Judge Johnston always honored me by ad- 
dressing me by my given name. He had not revisited Kan- 



86 Recollections 

sas City since he left this country in 1864, and, like other old- 
timers, remembered this town as "that small village near the 
mouth of the Kaw." Shortly before his death, as I was 
in my rooms at Willard's one morning, scanning our local 
papers, the Judge came in, full of talk as usual, and wanted 
me to listen. I did so, but unconsciously kept hold of the 
Journal I was reading. This evidently displeased him, for he 
said: "Henry, for God's sake put down that paper; what the 
hell could happen in a little place like Kansas City?" 

On one winter occasion, years ago, Judge Johnston gave 
Senator Dan Voorhees, his daughter Mary, and myself a dinner 
up at Cabin John Bridge, above Washington, and drove us 
thither in a closed carriage. Bn route home our carriage was 
enlivened by many old songs which were given us by the Sen- 
ator and Mary, for the dinner, with all its accompanying good 
things, had been most excellent, and the Senator could sing 
as well as make a speech. Soon after this. Judge Johnston 
and I made the usual New Year's calls for the national cap- 
ital, and the Senator's house was among our first calls. He 
was too ill to meet us in person, but sent down his regrets. 
Within a short time after this he joined the silent majority. 
The Judge and I continued our calls, and the last one of the 
day was made at "Stewart Castle," on Dupont Circle. For 
long years I knew both Senator Stewart and his accomplished 
wife, then a beautiful, white-haired, cultivated woman. She 
lost her life in an automobile accident at San Francisco, years 
ago; while the venerable Senator closed his accounts down at 
the capital just the other day, at the age of eighty-two. 
Mentally noting the fact that Mrs. Stewart welcomed many 
foreign legations on that day and talked in the language of 
their country with each, as we left the house, upon inquiry 
as fo who she was and where and how she had picked this 



Lawyers 87 

all up, the Judge said: "Why, she is the daughter of old 
Senator Foote, of Mississippi, and has spent more than half 
her adult life in travel and study." 

In his ten years on the frontier of Kansas, Judge Johnston 
spent much of his time among the Indians, and few men ev- 
er knew their characteristics better. Naturally truthful and 
honest, the full-blood as well as the mixed-blood Indian has 
been so long systematically robbed, plundered, and corrupted 
by contact with the whites, and particularly the missionary, 
that he is now neither understood nor appreciated. When 
tlie whites first established a trading-post at San Francisco, 
over a hundred years ago, no Indian was heard of who would 
spend the night there. They came in their skins and blankets 
and did their trading at Frisco, but retired to the adjacent 
hills for the night. Pressed for their reasons for this, an old 
Indian at last said: "This is shaky ground." Frequent 
earthquakes in later years have demonstrated the correctness 
of the old Indian; that ground was, always has been, and 
still is "shaky." So the older Indians protested against the 
thick settlements around the west bottoms of Kansas City, at 
North Topeka, and at Marion in Kansas. "High waters come 
and drown white people," they said ; and they were riglit. But 
I never so much appreciated the accuracy of their knowledge 
until of late years I have noted the oncoming of the waters 
at the places named. 

As illustrating the susceptibility of the average Indian 
to white influences, Judge Johnston often told me this mcident : 
In the early Territorial days of 1855, justices Johnston and 
Elmore were drivmg across the prairies from the Shawnee 
Mission to hold court at Lecompton, when they espied a 
blanketed Indian, out in the open, making a bee-line to inter- 
cept them on the trail. He was standing alone by the way- 



88 Recollectjons 

side when they drove up and stopped their buggy. Then, 
without a word, the consequential red-skin, from the recesses 
within his blanket somewhere, fished out and presented to them 
a big official envelope addressed to himself. This to show 
that he was a big Indian — a man of parts among his people. 
He then said "How?" and, speaking in very good broken Eng- 
lish, continued: "Me good Christian Indian; me love God; 
me love white man; got any whisk?" They said, "No." 
Drawing his blanket around him as only a dignified missionary 
convert to the white man's faith can, the Indian slowly strode 
oflF oyer the prairie, and simply said: "Ugh, God dam!" 

I never knew John Brown, of Osawatamie, personally, for 
he was hanged in my native State about seven years before 
1 came West and I never saw him ; but under tliis heading of 
Judge Johnston seems a good place to correct some popular 
and historical errors concerning John. When a boy at home, 
I read in the paper the account of John Brown's raid on 
Harper's Ferry, and recollect that I went to the dictionary to 
see just what that word meant, for my attention had never 
before been called to the word "raid." And when he was ex- 
ecuted at Charlestown, in December, 1859, for his wild exploit 
and violation of the laws of the Old Dominion, one lad within 
that State was thoroughly satisfied that he had met with a 
just fate and shed no tears. Although a Republican in politics, 
1 have not sympathized with either the man or his methods, 
for all law should be obeyed while in the statutes, and repealed 
if, and when, wrong. Hence, since coming to Missouri m 
1866, I have made something of a study of John Brown, and 
not only talked often with Judge Johnston about him, but also 
with Robert T. Van Horn, Daniel R. Anthony, Sr., John Speer, 
Johnson Clark, John Young Hewitt, Daniel Webster Wilder, 
and others. Many of these men became citizens of Kansas 



Lawyers 89 

Territory as early as 1854. In addition to all this, I have 
recently read that great book on the early history of Kansas 
written, and printed by George W. Brown, now of Rockford, 
Illinois. This book-writer owned and edited The Herald of 
freedom, published at Lawrence in Kansas, from 1854 to 1864. 
And all these men personally knew John Brown, the man, and 
in the same way knew what he did in Kansas and how it was 
done. Senator Johnson Clark, who lived on the Pottawato- 
mie, in Miami County in Kansas, near by John Brown's head- 
quarters, and the famous "Dutch Henry Crossing,'" from 1856 
to 1889, is now a resident of Kansas City, and knew Brown 
as well as any one in that Territory, said to me very recently : 
"The picture found in histories and magazine articles labeled 
'The Kansas Cabin of John Brown' was in fact constructed 
on land belonging to John Hanway, by his father, James Han- 
way, and myself, as and for a smoke-house, in order to cure 
and preserve the meat of our lean hogs in the great drought 
which prevailed in Kansas Territory in the summer of i860; 
and when John Brown was executed in Virginia in 1859, the 
trees from which this smoke-house was built were standing 
and green in the forest. The pictured cabin is the reproduction 
or one taken many years later by Mr. Barker, who was a pict- 
ure man at Ottawa, Kansas. More may be read about both 
Brown and myself at page 425 of the autobiography of John 
Speer, of Kansas." 

This Johnson Clark was a Kansas State senator from 
his district in 1862 and 1863; he is a native of Maine, and is 
today, as he has always been, a Republican. 

I am not unmindful of the fact that this John Brown had 
and has an international reputation; that books, sketches, and 
poems have been published lauding him to the skies and seek- 
ing to make him out only a trifle lower than the angels ; and 



90 Recollections 

that he is therein painted as a martyr, savior, saint, and all 
that. But from my talks with the gentlemen whom I have 
named as well as with many others who knew all the facts and 
the man. and from my reading and study of Western men who 
know and think and dare express themselves upon any public 
or private question, my own deliberate conclusions relating to 
the time and place are : That in the terrific struggle of the bor- 
der, from the day Kansas became a Territory, in 1854, until it 
was made a State, in 1861, the lawless element on both sides of 
tliat conflict there feared, and made earnest, though often in- 
effectual, efforts to be and remain within the letter of the law ; 
and that with them the main question was: How far may 
or can we go and not openly violate the Constitution and laws ? 
They tried to be legally honest. That it was, and still is, 
charitable, kind, and more consonant with the truth to conclude 
that John Brown, James H. Lane, and William C. Quantrell, 
once of Kansas, were all either lunatics, fanatics, or degen- 
erates — probably a little of each. Each was strong and force- 
ful in his way ; neither was a petty thief, nor a direct murderer, 
yet no doubt each there caused the death of more than one 
personal or political enemy back in the earlier years. That, 
although an earnest, restless, courageous man of more than 
average intelligence, yet John Brown was not truthful, and 
was a fanatical follower of those who sought the freedom of 
the Negro slave ; that, during his less than three years there in 
Kansas, he never at any time owned a cabin, or a spring, or 
a foot of land ; that, through his intemperance of speech and 
lawlessness of action, he there did more actual harm to the 
righteous Free State cause, fought and won despite of him, than 
any one hundred Pro-slavery men in Kansas Territory, and 
that he was then and there regarded in his own party, by those 
who knew him best as a common liar, slave-thief, and mur- 



Lawyers 91 

derer. Misconception of exact facts, mistaken notions of al- 
leged patriotic motives, or maudlin party sentiment may move 
the many ; but such fawning flattery of the man John Brown, as 
he was well known to Kansas, led the old-timers to believe Tom 
Reed, of Maine, right in often saying that written history is 
made up from "lies agreed upon." 



92 Recollections 

IV 

PRESIDENTS I HAVE KNOWN. 

Andrew Johnson. One morning in the spring of 1866, 
I accompanied U. S. Senator James A. McDougall, of Cali- 
fornia, to the White House, to call upon President Johnson. 
The Senator was my father's cousin and had taken it into 
his head that I ought to follow the life of a soldier, and at his 
request and out of compliment to one of his ardent supporters, 
the President then tendered me the appointment as major in 
the regular Army ; but, as I had then been subject to the orders 
of my superiors since 1861, I respectfully declined the honor 
and the office, and I am still glad of it. In both President and 
Senator I recognized greatness, but further knew that both 
were even then comfortably "full." Johnson was a U. S. 
senator from Tennessee both before and after he was Pres- 
ident. While he grew to be a powerful man mentally, yet at 
the time of his marriage he was a poverty-stricken tailor at 
Greenville ; his old sign, "A. Johnson, Tailor," there appeared, 
and he was proud of it, while our highest executive officer; 
his good wife started him on his way to learning and to prom- 
inence, yet through it all he always prided himself upon being 
a plebeian and upon having started in life as an humble 
mechanic. Long ago I read a speech of his, in reply to the 
taunt of some senatorial colleague that he was unworthy of 
consideration, for he was "only a mechanic," in which he ad- 
mitted the charge and reminded the Senate that God Almighty 
himself was our first merchant tailor, and closed his self-vin- 
dication by calling attention to the fact that "the Son of Man 
was the son of a carpenter." While then in Washington, in 
the callow tenderness of blooming youth, I thought that half a 



Presidents I Have Known 93 

dozen of us young fellows were one night serenading the Pres- 
ident and his Cabinet with a brass band; but now the im- 
pression is that some politicians were back of the scheme and 
really furnished both band and money for our night's sport. 
Plowever this may have been, yet the speeches then made 
were all good ; but the strongest, ablest, most vigorous 
of them all was that of the President himself. In the 
course of that speech Johnson returned his thanks to the 
beneficent Giver of all good for that "the members of 
Congress and the Executive were becoming knit closer to- 
gether day by day." His judgment was wrong in that 
conclusion, as was later shown when the same Congress 
attempted to impeach him and oust him from office. Both 
personally and politically I was always glad that movement 
failed. The impeachment of the President at that time would 
have been almost as great a political blunder as that one after- 
ward perpetrated by my own party in enfranchising the Negro. 

Mrs. Johnson was an invalid and rarely seen by White 
House visitors, and the social functions of the high office fell 
upon the President's devoted daughter. While there I heard 
of this womanly reply returned by this Mrs. Patterson, and 
thought all the more of her for it : A delegation of ladies said 
she must take the lead of some swell society afifair, but she 
modestly declined the honor, upon the ground that "we are 
plain people, from the mountains of Tennessee." 

Within a few short months after bidding President John- 
son good-bye, I landed at Gallatin, Missouri, and the next 
Sunday attended church services conducted by a good, pious, 
white-haired preacher named Cooper. In his sermon, to bring 
the matter down to the comprehension of his hearers. Brother 
Cooper compared the Father of us all sitting on His great white 
throne up above to the President sitting in his chair of state 



94 Recollections 

in the White House at Washington. The comparison went. 
Maybe I looked grave, but I felt more like a yell, for in a flash 
it came to my mind just how our President appeared when 
last I saw him in that same White House, in well-worn slippers^ 
shabby dressing-gown, and a trifle exhilarated ! I readily 
gave credence to this story of Johnson's last election to the 
Senate: He was making one of his characteristic and power- 
ful public campaign speeches in Tennessee w^hen an admirer 
nudged an opponent in the ribs and significantly said: "There 
is life in the old man yet." To which the other quickly re- 
sponded : "Yes, and there is hell in him, too." Notwith- 
standing his many defects, history will yet write Andrew 
Johnson down as one of the bravest and best of our American 
Presidents. 



Ulysses S. Grant. In the heat of the campaign of li 
I practiced on the people in many public addresses for Grant, 
and the only good thing I now recall about those early efforts 
is that some few of those who listened to my speeches are still 
alive ! Then, too, I wore a red uniform cap and beat the bass 
drum in a brass band and joined other young enthusiasts in 
singing a half-forgotten campaign song about what a jolly 
time we would have in "turning Andy Johnson out and put- 
ting in Grant." In the Army and when he was our President, 
I saw much of Grant and met him once after his retirement. 
In all his public career I stood by, with, and under Grant (for 
to me no one could have been greater or better), w^ith this one 
single exception : I made a political mistake in not supporting 
him for a third term in 1880, and was for Garfield. 

Grant had the quickest eye, as well as the most rapid 
and accurate judgment, of anyone I have known. When the 
completion of the Rock Island Railroad was celebrated in 
vSeptember, 1871, as the Mayor of Gallatin I joined our West- 



Presidents I Have Known 95 

ern people and met the west-bound excursion train at Trenton. 
Grant was then in his first term and many distinguished guests 
were in the party as that first through train sped on its way 
to Leavenworth, Kansas. I happened to be in the General's 
car and was engaged in friendly talk with President and Mrs. 
Grant and Miss Nellie as our train approached the Dog Creek 
trestle up in Daviess County. Just then a pompous official 
came in the car and, politely addressing Grant, said: "Mr. 
President, this train is now approaching the longest single 
trestle between Chicago and Leavenworth and I should be 
glad to show and explain it to you." Just as if always ready, 
anxious, and willing to please, Grant accepted the kindness; 
the officer opened the car door and motioned the General to 
step on the platform for a full view, when the wily Grant 
motioned the other gentlemen to go first. Then Grant closed 
the door, took one quick glance at the situation as the train, 
sped on, and then turned to me with his sly twinkle of the 
eye and simply said: "It ought to be filled." Many years 
afterward the railway company did construct a long, expensive 
"fill" at that very spot, and travelers now cross that creek on 
the "fill" which Grant's eye told him should have been con- 
structed there m the beginning. Upon arrival at Leavenworth 
our party attended a banquet at the old Planters' House that 
night, presided over by Colonel D. R. Anthony, and President 
Grant became the guest of Senator Caldwell. Next morning 
we were driven over the city and the Government Reservation 
at Fort Leavenworth. I was assigned to a carriage con- 
taining U. S. Judges Mark W. Delahay and Henry W. Blodg- 
ett. The former was the most versatile talker in Kansas, and 
throughout the drive embellished his every sentence with learn- 
ing, wisdom, wit, and eloquence ; while the latter spoke rarely,. 
mostly in monosyllables, but always to the exact point. That 



96 Recollrctions 

afternoon we went to Atchison, and thence to the terminus of 
some railroad then being constructed westward, and there on 
the wide prairie, forty miles from town, Frank Lumbard and 
and his famous Chicago quartette again sang "Old Shady" for 
us. At another banquet, at the Otis House, Senator Samuel 
C. Pomeroy was toast-master that night. Our last stop was 
at St. Joseph, where their Exposition was in full blast, with 
Colonel Charles R. Jennison, of Kansas, presiding in the grand 
stand, and Bud Doble was in attendance with the then famous 
Goldsmith's Maid. As Grant passed through the crowd in his 
silent way, a gentleman pointed him out and said, "There goes 
President Grant," and to this a horsey native replied, "Grant 
hell! you can't fool me; that's Bud Doble; I seen him and 
his boss yisterday." The two men then resembled. 

Rutherford B. Hayes. As an officer in the war. Gov- 
ernor of his State, and comrade of the G. A. R., I always liked 
Hayes, nor did I find any fault with his conduct and manage- 
ment of our public affairs as President ; but I have never believed 
that he was either fairly or honestly entitled to this high office, 
and was sorry he accepted as final and conclusive the vote 
of the Electoral Commission. Indeed, I felt so sure that Mr. 
Justice Bradley would cast his vote the other way as a mem- 
ber of that commission that I wagered a box of cigars on the 
final result with my Democratic friend. Judge Joseph P. Grubb, 
of St. Joseph, Mibsouri — and lost i So, since 1877, commis- 
sions have been added to my list, among juries and courts, 
and all classed as uncertain. 

J.xMEs Abr..\m Garfield. I knew and liked Garfield and 
was so glad of his election that I journeyed down to Wash- 
ington solely to see him inaugurated as President on March 
4, 1 88 1. Thereafter 1 watched his course with unusual inter- 
est; it did not appeal to me. With all his wondrous schol- 



Presidents I Have Known 97 

arship, long experience in public matters, great powers as a 
speaker and organizer, yet in that office he developed that 
trait which was once characterized by Chief Justice Sherwood, 
of this State, as "a. pitiable and painful weakness in the dorsal 
region." So vanished another political day-dream; one added 
to the many, and the world moves on just the same. 

Chester A. Arthur was the most polished, suave, and 
courtly gentleman that has occupied the Presidential chair in 
my day. While he was President, I once sat in the round 
room at the White House and heard and saw him as he in 
turn disposed of three several senators and the delegations 
accompanying each. He there displayed the rare faculty of 
hearing everything and saying nothing. When all were gone, 
in his own kind, good way, he turned to me and, after a warm 
greeting, asked what he could do for me. I answered, "Not a 
thing. Mr. President; I only called to pay my personal and 
political respects because you are my President and I like 
you." No urging upon his part tended to change this reso- 
lution. He proved a strong, able, efficient Executive; loved 
the good things of earth, his party, and his friends, and, I now 
think, should have had the office again in 1884. 

Grover Cleveland. IVIy attention was first directed to 
this man by his unusually strong, clear, and sensible veto mes- 
sages during his term of office as Mayor of Bufifalo, N. Y, 
While he was Governor of that State, I kept my eye on him,, 
for again he demonstrated the fact that he was big, brainy, 
and fearless. I was in the Chicago Convention of 1884, that 
first nominated him for President, but, being a Republican 
and a personal friend of Blaine, neither feared nor properly 
considered Cleveland's nomination. His election was a sur- 
prise. But when he first went into that office, as well as in 



98 Recollections 

his second term. I saw him often and came to have for him 
the highest possible regard. 

When first I met him at Washington, in 1886, I was a 
member of the law firm of Crittenden, McDougal & Stiles; 
and he and my senior were then politically at outs. In our 
talk I mentioned incidentally the newspaper rumor of his 
contemplated visit to Kansas City, and happened to say that 
I would here show him more attention and pay him more re- 
spectful honor than would my senior partner. Quick as a flash 
came this happy response: "Yes, I know you are a law partner 
of Governor Crittenden and a Republican; but no one could 
more appreciate your kindness than myself; the Governor and 
I will be better friends when we know each other better." At a 
distance, Cleveland then looked to me like some great, sleepy 
animal; but once right up against and talking with him, his 
face and eyes had a rarely attractive charm. After his mar- 
riage at the White House, I was a guest for a time at 1301 
K Street, N. W., in Washington ; his wife's niece attended 
the Franklin public school just across the corner, and it was- 
no unusual sight for us to see Mrs. Cleveland in her carriage 
as she drove this little girl to and from that school. During 
his second term as President, I spent a Sunday afternoon with 
the Clevelands out at their summer home in the suburbs of 
the city, and the man then, as always, astonished me by his 
marvelous grasp of both men and measures. He was a hard, 
close worker, never once tried to fool himself, and his recrea- 
tion was in hunting, fishing, and good red whisky ; yet at all 
other seasons his public work was unceasing. A friend of 
his once made to me the point that Cleveland would go down 
in history as one of our greatest and best American Presidents. 
In answer to my question, "Why?" he said: "There are and 
will be three great public questions before this country — tariff. 



Presidents I Have Known 99 

currency, and civil service; the scholars of the world believe 
him right upon all these, and scholars write history." In 1887 
he and his wife visited Kansas City. He then made speeches 
and laid the corner-stone of our Y. M. C. A. building, while 
Mrs. Cleveland, by her good sense, tactful bearing, and wo- 
manly beauty, won the hearts of our people. I spent the sum- 
mers of 1890 and 1895 at Cobb's Island, ofT the Virginia coast; 
and Hog Island, in plain sight, was Cleveland's favorite shoot- 
ing and fishing resort. When he and his party were reported 
lost for three days during his second term, they were all up 
in a friendly cove into the mainland near Hog Island, and were 
not lonesome ! 

While he was President the second time, I called upon 
him at Washington and urged Cleveland to promote my young 
friend Enoch Herbert Crowder from a captain to be a major 
and judge-advocate in the U. S. Army, on the ground that 
Crowder was then the best lawyer in the regular establishment. 
Crowder had been a Daviess-Grundy County, Missouri, boy; 
had his full share of field and staff duty; was of tremendous 
industry, a student, thinker, and worker, and I liked him. 
Cleveland was deeply touched by my representations concern- 
ing the young man and gave me the closest attention. I rec- 
ollect that I closed my talk to him by saying: "But there is 
another thing, Mr. President, that Crowder would have me 
say if he were here prompting me, and it is my duty to you to 
say it anyway ; the fact is, Crowder's father was an old soldier 
of the Republic and that both he and his son are Republicans 
today." The rugged President knew and understood this and 
at once brought his enormous fist down on his table with a 
whack and said: "By God, sir, I '11 appoint him; he is worthy, 
and I want to strike a death-blow to politics in our Army 
anyway." So the President jumped Crowder over 842 other 



100 Recollections 

officers, gave him the desired promotion, and in his many pre- 
ferments since then, that young man has made good at all times 
and in all plates. When Crowder is again promoted, as he 
soon will be, to the high office of Judge-Advocate General of 
the U. S. x-Xrmy, and I retire from the law practice, I am 
promised a cozy corner in the War Department building down 
at Washington to smoke and read and doze all day long, dur- 
ing my visits, with none to molest or make afraid, and the 
credit for all this coming good runs back to Grover Cleveland. 
During President Cleveland's second term I started to 
Chicago on June 30, 1894. On account ot a then impending 
labor strike, our train was delayed the next day at Joliet, Illi- 
nois, for over twelve hours ; but finally I reached the great city 
on the last train that went in, and was there bottled up 
ten days. From Joliet I wrote home as follows: 

"JOLiET, July I, 1894. 
" 'No life is perfect that has not been lived— youth in iter 
ing, manhood in battle, old age in meditation.' All these 
in their order had been his ; and now as he neared the closing 
scene — the time when his accounts with men and women and 
gods and things must be balanced — had he not time for 'medi- 
tation'? Not amid the trees and flowers and waters and 
mountains, the chirp of the cricket, hum of bees, perfume of 
rose and pink and honeysuckle and sweet-brier, known and 
loved when life was young; but in the hot, dry, dusty little 
city, crowded with anxious and worn and travel-stained fel- 
low-beings, who are unable to move either east or west — the 
haunted face of discontented labor at every step, the spirit 
of dread unrest everywhere. Why? The stupidity of grasp- 
ing, avaricious capital, the fear of so-called statesmen and 
journalists, the mistaken sentiment of discontented working- 
men, had unwittingly and unconsciously combined to stop the 
wheels of travel and commerce and might yet turn back to 
wlicre they stopped, in sunny France one hundred and one years 
ago, the hands of the clock of human progress. God protect 
America ! It now seemed unable to protect itself from these 
disintegrating forces at war with each other within its bor- 



Presidents I Have Known 101 

<lers, each claiming the protection of its laws and flag. When 
or how the end would come could not be guessed, but the 
result must be disastrous alike to labor, capital, and country. 
If the mad craze were not soon stopped and patriotic reason 
again enthroned, then must come first a period of anarchy 
and later a reorganized and a stronger and better form of 
centralized government. Oh for the courageous patriotism 
of a Hamilton, a Washington, a Lincoln, the fearless sword 
of a Jackson or a Grant, to lead us back to paths of peace 
through the fires and unrest of this day ! 

"To be within sight of the promised land — almost within 
the lulling sound of the cooling waters of the inland sea — 
and yet unable to go thither, was a strong reminder of the 
unhappy and untimely fate of our old and cherished friend — • 
Moses. H. C. McD." 

While a guest at the Auditorium Annex in Chicago dur- 
ing this strike, many unusual scenes were daily witnessed. In 
vain the President appealed to the Mayor of the city and 
Governor of the State, but lawlessness and anarchy held the 
great city and all within its borders in the grip of discontented 
labor, and unprovoked riots occurred every hour. Men, women, 
and even children were wild, the national Government was 
damned, along with everything that moved on wheels ; the 
city was fired in many places every night, railroad cars were 
burned, public and private property destroyed, and such a law- 
less spirit of unrest prevailed as is seldom seen. Just in the 
nick of time, when no other constituted authority would take 
a stand for law and order and the best citizens of the city, 
along with its unwilling transients, were on the eve of despair, 
President Cleveland did the right and courageous thing in 
calling out the Federal troops. Had he done nothing else 
during his administration, that act should forever stamp him 
as one of our greatest and best public officers, for when the 
soldiers came marching on to the field, anarchy hid its hydra 



102 Recollections 

head and the Chicago strike of 1894 was soon a nightmare of 
the past. 

When the passions and prejudices of our time shall have 
passed away, the impartial historian will say that the highest 
type of our Democratic Presidents, with the possible exception 
of Andrew Jackson, was represented in the public acts of 
Grover Cleveland. Each of these two men had a backbone like 
a crowbar, with dauntless courage, mental grasp, and brains 
in abundance. By reason of his early environments and time, 
Cleveland was the more scholarly, antl I know it is said that 
Jackson went to his grave in the firm belief that the earth 
was as flat as a pancake; yet to me his lusty and lofty 
patriotism stands out today as one of tb.e beacon-lights on 
the hill-tops of our history, and my admiration for the man 
is unbounded. I was born at the close of the great campaign 
of 1844, my father was an ardent Whig, and I had to be 
named for the candidate of his party. It is possible that my 
high opinion of Jackson was somewhat colored in his favor 
by a story told me years ago by George W. De Camp, who, in 
1845, was a Pennsylvania Democrat and a great admirer of 
"Old Hickory." On his home journey from New Orleans in 
the spring of that year, De Camp deflected his course and went 
to The Hermitage to visit the old lion, who was near his, death. 
Jackson was in bed, but overheard the conversation between 
De Camp and the negro attendant, and in a firm voice said, 
"Invite the young man in." De Camp entered the sick-room 
and sat down before the old-fashioned open fire, when the 
old soldier called for his never-failing pipe to clear away the 
phlegm from his throat so that he could talk to his guest. 
The negro lighted the pipe from a live coal at the fire, from 
it took a few whififs to start the tobacco burning, wiped off 
the stem with his fingers, and handed the pipe to his master. 



Presidents I Have Known 103 

Jackson smoked in silence until his throat and voice w^ere 
clear, partially dressed his wasted form, and then for an hour 
talked more patriotism than De Camp had ever heard. But 
he said first: "And so you are a Pennsylvania Democrat? 
May God bless the Democracy of that great State, for they 
always stood by and loyally supported Andrew Jackson." 
President Polk had just been inaugurated and in the talk the 
young man expressed the fear that Polk might not prove 
equal to the occasion. But Jackson quieted this apprehension 
by saying: "I know James K. Polk well ; he is a good, honest, 
sensible American statesman and will give us a good adminis- 
tration ; the people made no mistake in electing him our Pres- 
ident; nor would they have made a mistake had they then 
elected that stalwart American of all Americans, Henry Clay." 

Benjamin Harrison. My first personal acquaintance 
with General Harrison began at his home in Indianapolis, and 
I happened to be present then and heard him deliver his fare- 
well address to his old regiment when it was mustered out of 
the United States service in the autumn of 1865. It was the 
speech of a courageous American soldier, patriot, and states- 
man, and from that day on to the closing scene I watched the 
wise course of this great man. Many young officers who had 
attained distinction in the war just closed were then restive 
under the paramoimt control of the civilian and the civil law, 
and no one knew it better than Harrison. So in this, final talk 
he reminded his old "boys" that every issue for which he and 
they had entered upon the service of their country in the field 
was then decided by the force and efifect of war, and decided 
in favor of the men who wore the blue. And in his earnest 
closing he said : "Standing once more upon the soil of Indiana 
as citizens of this State, I beg to remind you of this additional 
fact : that there is but one thing for you and for me to do, 



104 Recoi.ltvCTions 

and that is for each and every man to drop back into his old 
place as a citizen and for all to work together with the people 
of the East and the West, the North and the South, in uphold- 
ing and uiibuilding this great country which we have helped to 
save." 

In 1874, many of our people cried aloud for more money,, 
for the times were hard. One of our national parties saw 
relief in hut one way, while some of our truest and ablest 
statesmen were wavering. Yielding to public clamor, the Con- 
gress passed an act to inflate the currency, and that bill was 
before our President for approval or rejection. So well-nigh 
universal was the cry for currency inflation that but two- 
citizens of my then home county up in North Missouri op- 
posed this bill. The one was a Virginia Democrat named D- 
Harfield Davis, of Gallatin, and the other was myself. Then 
it was that, in his quiet, thoughtful way, Benjamin Harrison 
slipped off alone to Bloomington, Indiana, and there made the 
clearest and best sound money speech I ever read. With his 
wondrous powers of condensation, great Grant took up that 
speech, interwove its substance into his veto message, and the 
country was saved from another curse. 

During Harrison's presidential term a coterie of his polit- 
ical enemies had purposely misled him, and he had sent to the 
Senate for confirmation the name of an unworthy anti-admin- 
istration Republican for postmaster of a Missouri city. To 
untangle this skein and set the President right, I went to Wash- 
ington and called at the White House when the Executive 
was in a private conference with some foreign diplomats. So 
the old door-keeper, Charlie Loeffler, whom I had known for 
years, soon reported that no audience could be had with the 
President on that day, and advised me to return at nine the 
following morning. To this unholy hour I demurred, on the 



Presidents I Have Known 105 

ground that no one ever attended to business that early. But 
Loeffler said: "The President is an early riser; he fixed that 
hour and requests you to call to see him, and if in your place, 
I would do so." So I was on hand at the minute, and there 
sat Harrison in his private office, waiting for me. In the long, 
friendly talk which followed, with a tinge of sadness on his 
face that I never saw there before, Harrison said: "No man 
who has never filled this office can know or appreciate its vast 
responsibilities, and I often retire at night so tired of it all 
that 1 tliink if I could only return home and resume my law 
practice at Indianapolis, no man on earth would be so well 
satisfied " When my mission was explained later on, he con- 
curred in the view that there was both good sense and good 
politics in the desired change, and gave me a penciled note 
to this efi^ect to his Postmaster-General. This Cabinet office 
was then filled by the truly good John Wanamaker. When 
the President's note was presented, with my brief and court- 
eous statement of the exact facts, on that morning, I was met 
with the haughty and indignant protest of this official against 
any change, mainly on the ground the he had recommended 
that appointment and did not want any change made. That 
this mere hired servant should so respond to one of his mas- 
ters and sovereigns was more than one American citizen would 
tolerate, and with some degree of warmth came this quick 
answer: "1 stand here witli the President's approval, rep- 
resenting the Republican party of Missouri. We do not intend 
that any office in that State shall be held by any man who 
is opposed to this administration ; nor do we care a damn 
Avhat vou may or may not think in the premises. Get me the 
papers m this case" He vv'a? so astonished that, without an- 
other wo.'d lie went out, got the papers, and handed them to 
me, and the matiei was speedily closed to tht complete satis 



106 Recollections 

faction of everyone, with the possible exception of the Post- 
master-General. 

No lawyer of that State ever said that he was one of their 
best lawyers ; but all the members of that great bar, regardless 
of party, joined in the universal statement while he lived that 
"the best lawyer in Indiana is Ben Harrison." 

At the bar, in the Senate, on the stump, and as President, 
I often saw and studied this man. The public looked upon 
him as cold, distant, dignified. He was thoughtful always, 
preoccupied with some difficult problem often, yet to me he 
was at all times the same careful, generous, courageous friend. 
My judgment of him was and is that he brought to the dis- 
charge of every public duty a warm heart and a wise head ; 
and he was certainly the clearest-headed statesman, the most 
intellectual President of my time. 

William McKinley. When first we met, we were both 
young soldiers in that which late in the war became the 
Department of West Virginia, and he was then a captain and 
I a private. Never personally close or intimate, yet we held 
many theories in common, and from war-tnnes on up until 
the assassin s bullet closed his illustrious career, we kept tab 
on each other and many friendly letters passed between us. 

During the I^epubhcan National Convention at Chicago, 
in 1888, we met on the street one mcrning, greeted, shook 
hands, and passed on; but 1 have always thought he never 
knew he had met a friend. The reason was apparent when 
the convention met two hours later. He had received some 
votes for l^resiaential nominee and a concerted effort was to be 
made that day to ncminait him, and h.e knew it He arose 
in his delfcgaiion before a vote was had and made tne most 
honest as vvcil as the mardiest speech tc wnicn 1 evei hiiened 
in a convention Vvhile I d: not recall his language, yet 1 



Presidents I Have Known 107 

] 

do remember that he told the delegates in the most earnest 

and impressive manner, that he was a delegate to that con- 
vention instructed for and intending to loyally support to the 
end a statesman of highest rank (John Sherman), and that 
no friend of his could or would thereafter cast a single vote 
in his favor. 

Eight years later I attended the St. Louis Convention, 
and no one was more highly gratified when McKinley was 
there nominated for President, in 1896, But only a few weeks 
afterward I was in attendance at the opposing convention in 
Chicago, and not only saw and heard their many public dem- 
onstrations, but listened to the great speech of William J. 
Bryan, which there resulted in his nomination ; and as a speech 
that was one of the most powerful to which I ever listened. 

Upon my return home from that Chicago convention, no 
one could have been more concerned for the future of the 
country, for it seemed to me that from all sections many of 
our most level-headed and conservative men were simply wild 
on the silver question. Up to that date McKinley had been 
making his national campaign turn on the tariff. So to set him 
right, as well as my party, I wrote iVIcKinley a long letter and 
urged him to switch from tariff to finance, telling him, among 
many other things, that while parties made platforms, the peo- 
ple made the issues, and that they had settled upon the prop- 
osition, whether right or wrong, that finance was the only 
issue before the people in that campaign. While my stenog- 
rapher was running oft' this letter, I went to luncheon, and 
there met a gentleman who had nominated McKinley three 
times for Congress and once for Governor of Ohio, and, upon 
being advised of the substance of my letter, he asked to see it, 
and to this I readily assented. So we two came to my office; 
he read and heartily concurred in all I had said, but asked 



108 Rrcollrctions 

and was granted i)ennission to add a line in his own hand- 
writing. In that written postscript Judge King told McKinley 
that all I had said was true; that he, too, had been all over the 
West and knew the sentiment of all the people, and joined me 
in an earnest ai)peal for a change in the issue from tariff to 
finance. That change was made and the result is known. 

During his administration much of my time was spent 
at Washington and I was often in consultation with the Pres- 
ident. To me he was always the same smooth, thoughtful, 
gentle, tactful politician, and this trait of his character was 
never more impressed upon me than once in a call, not long 
after the ".Maine" was blown up, T urged the appointment of 
a young neighbor and friend, whose family from early Colo- 
nial times in Virginia had always borne the same name and 
had been soldiers. With the deference which always dis- 
tinguished the man, the President first assured me that it would 
always give him pleasure to adopt any suggestion of mine; 
but went on to give me a list of the names of officers and men 
who had lost their lives in the then pending Spanish-American 
War and the names of their surviving sons; he said these boys 
desired to follow in the footsteps of their fathers, and to pre- 
fer them was about the only poor recognition this Government 
could .show the boys; and closed by submitting to me this 
question: "Now, my friend, put yourself in my place and 
yourself answer the question. What would you do under all 
these circumstances — prefer and appoint the sons of our dead 
heroes, or an outsider like your young friend?" He knew 
there could be but one answer. But that was McKinley's 
way. 

By appointment T called on him one morning when this 
war was coming on. There was trouble for him in our Mis- 
souri camp, but his real friends here in the West believed 



Presidents I Have Known 109 

in tne man ana earnestly clesirecl his renomination. He and 
I were to talk over the political status of this State and agree 
upon some plan respecting his future. But when I was 
ushered into his presence, he looked so worn and pale and 
wan that, taking in his condition at a glance, I said: "Major, 
you are a sick man, made so by the situation that confronts 
your high office; don't say or tliink anything of political con- 
ditions in the West; I go home tomorrow, and as soon as I 
■can get there, some of your friends will be called into con- 
sultation and your interests will be looked after as they should 
be; we will arrange that matter there." McKinley, without 
■even a smile, said: "Vou are very kind; do that which you 
think best and I shall be satisfied." That was all. But the 
result shows that his interests were not neglected. 

The last time we met, I called in company with Colonel 
R. T. Van Horn, and a long, pleasant, friendly talk followed, 
in the course of which the Colonel told an appropriate story, 
over which we all laughed most heartily. That the point of 
that story was against one of the personal and political friends 
of the I'resident did not trouble him for a moment. 

Theodore Roosevelt. This great man was and is so 
constructed mentally and physically that he is simply impelled 
by the law of his being to say and do things every hour and 
minute he is awake. Nearly always right, to my thinking, 
he occasionally said and did things that should have been 
omitted ; but to the country at large he looms up like the 
Colossus he is, and I do not hope to see another man in that 
chair who can or will do as much for the good of all the 
people as did Theodore Roosevelt. 

WiLUAM Hov^ARD Taft. Knowing his father before 
him, and him as I do, nothing he has said or done up to this 
hour has either surprised or displeased me. But he has only 



110 Recollections 

been in office a few months ; the country, people, and party 
expect much of him, and I do not think either will be dis- 
appointed. Time alone will disclose all this. He starts out 
well and is almost sure to make good. 



V. 
A FEW OTHER STATESMEN I HAVE MET. 



James G. Blaine, Maine. If there be an American over 
thirty years old who has not heard and read many good things 
about the life and achievements of this great statesman, then 
that American is alone — everybody else knows. As a member 
of Congress, as U. S. senator, as twice Secretary of State, 
as a worker, thinker, writer, talker, orator, from his entrance 
into public life in the troublous days of the Civil War down 
to the day of his death in 1893, he moulded and guided public 
thought, opinion, and action by sheer force of his tremendous 
personality and strong, clear, able statesmanship, as no other 
American of my time. 

When first I knew him, his bright light was largely ob- 
scured by the lower House leader in tlie person of the great 
Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania. For gnarled and knotted 
old Thad I had a profound boyhood respect. Since his day no 
leader has ever been able to lash that body into a perfect 
frenzy of political excitement, nor so certainly dominate the 
lower branch of the Federal Congress. In that day, now far 
back, I used to go with Kellian V. Whaley, an old friend of 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met ill 

my father, to a famous gambling-house in Washington. There 
the choicest wines, cigars, and lunches were always served 
free to all comers, and there I often watched these two old 
leviathans, Stevens and Whaley, at some game of chance 
till midnight ; then they invariably quit and went home. Colo- 
nel R. T. \^an Horn, who was then a member of that Con- 
gress, told me that old Thad's last winning one night was a 
twenty-dollar bill, which he slipped into his vest-pocket. As 
he was going into the House next morning with his guest 
he saw an old charwoman in apparent need, and, without a 
word or glance, gave her this bill. His friend asked: "Do 
you know what you gave this woman?" Old Thad said he 
didn't; and was then reminded of his winnings at poker the 
night before, and that he had just given that sum away to 
charity. The "old commoner" only remarked: "I. does beat 
hell how 'God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to per- 
form.' " I always mentally resented the statement in "The 
Clansman" that old Thad's housekeeper dominated his public 
and private career, for, in my judgment, neither God nor 
man nor woman ever dominated Thaddeus Stevens in any 
way. So, in his day, both Blaine and Conkling were great, 
but Thad Stevens was greater. 

When Blaine became Speaker of the House, on March 
4, 1869, the deserved promotion wrought a wondrous, yet to 
me natural, change in his official couduct. As his party lead- 
er in Congress he had been ever alert, watchful, wary, saga- 
cious, and no man struck quicker or more powerful blows 
than he; but as Speaker he was cautious, conservative, fair, 
and always held his country above his party. I know of no 
stronger or better illustration of the doctrine that place and 
power bring conservatism. 

Those who have not read and studied the great speech 



112 Recollections 

of Colonel IngersoU in nominating Blaine for President in 
1876, or the writings and speeches of "the Plumed Knight," 
still have before them treats of the highest order, for no man 
in his party ever had more fighting friends than Blaine, nor 
a greater number of earnest, enthusiastic supporters. He ae- 
served to be and should have been President, and the one 
great regret of his life, as well as my own, was that he fell 
just outside the breastworks; but with his face to the enemy. 

When, in 1876, his State sent him to the U. S. Senate, 
in public life Blaine again met his personal enemy, the great 
Conkling, of New York. The strained yet grave courtesy 
between these two peerless leaders was once described to me 
by Senator James T. Farley, of California. When a young 
man, this "Jim" Farley was a deputy sheriff in Daviess County, 
Missouri, at Gallatin, but he went off to the Pacific coast in an 
early day in search of fortune and fame ; through a faro bank, 
poker, and the law he finally got both, and his party then sent 
him to the U. S. Senate. En route to and from the national 
capital, he often stopped at his old home in Gallatin and always 
made his headquarters at my office. Soon after his entrance 
into the Senate. Farley and I were sitting back in the lobby, 
talking "old Missouri," while Blaine and Senator Allen G. 
Thurman, of Ohio, were having a hot tilt in the Senate over 
some political matter. Like some of our latter-day senators, 
no one could sit on Blaine, or his party, with impunity, and 
his voice and lungs and thoughts were always in readiness. 
Thurman was a greatly beloved leader, with whom few cared 
to contest any question, but on that day he was not at his best, 
and knew it. The little row was over and the Senate ad- 
journed. "The old Roman" was not satisfied, and asked: 
"Say, boys, how did I acquit myself?" Farley and his other 
associates said he had made a good fight ; but Thurman shook 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 113- 

his strong gray locks and said: "Glad to hear it, boys; you 
see, I don't feel first class today and rather doubted myself; 
but just let that damned upstart tackle me some day when 
I 'm sober, and I won't leave a grease-spot of him." 

While Blaine was in the Senate, we met one day on 
Pennsylvania Avenue. In his quick way he asked : "Are you 
personally acquainted with A. and B. of your Congressional 
district?" I answered in the affirmative, and his next question 
was: "Which of these will make the better postmaster at 

?" I answered, "A," He said, "I thank you, sir," and 

passed on. But the next day A. was appointed and confirmed 
as postmaster at that town and a political fight that had theT»e 
raged for over a year was settled. 

In the early fall of 188 1, the next day after the death of 
President Garfield, a letter came into my possession, written 
only four days prior to his assassination, by one stalwart to 
another, which to my mind unquestionably foreshadowed "the 
impending" crime of Guiteau. This letter was of such grave 
national concern that I at once carried it to Washington and 
laid it before Mr. Blaine, who was then Secretary of State 
and knew both parties. We sat together alone in his private 
office while he read it. and I can never forget the shudder 
which shook the man as he exclaimed: "My God! can it be 
possible that J. knew this awful deed was to be done?" Then 
apparently recollecting his own status in the party, and com- 
prehending on the instant the efi'ect which such a letter might 
have upon his future, Blaine asked : "Who else in the party 
at Washington knows of the contents of this letter?" I an- 
swered: "No one, sir; I brought it to you as the close personal 
and political friend and premier of Garfield." Then he said: 
"V/e must not let the sun go down tonight leaving me the 
sole recipient of this information at the capital ; do you know 



114 Recollections 

and have you confidence in Justice Miller, of the Supreme 
Court?" Upon my saying that I had known and confided in 
the Justice for years, two sworn copies of this letter were 
there made ; Blaine at once sent a messenger with these copies 
to Justice Aliller and another, and promised to lay the matter 
before the secret service officers that night. This was the only 
time I ever saw Mr. Blaine when he seemed the least nervous, 
but that letter so wrought upon his feelings that he begged 
me not to disclose to anyone there the object of my visit to 
the capital, and several times repeated that, m his judgment, 
my life would not be sate at Washington if the opposition 
either knew I carried such a letter on my person or knew its 
contents. With all his solicitude and interest, neither he nor 
anyone else in authority, at any time thereafter, ever expressed 
a word to me upon the subject matter of this letter. The in- 
cident then closed, as far as I ever knew. Maybe it is as well, 
for the parties who knew the facts are all gone now, excepting 
only myself. 

When Blaine was defeated for the Presidency in 1884, 
my personal and political grief was beyond words, and I still 
regret that defeat. My afi"ection for and admiration of the 
man for his many great qualities of head and heart, not less 
dian his acquirements as an ardent, sagacious statesman and 
leader of his party, were well-nigh boundless. He had the 
happy faculty, possessed by no other of his day so far as I 
knew, of putting his arms about his friend and raising that 
friend up, however lowly the station, to his own lofty height. 

John S. Carlisle, Clarksburg, West Virginia. From 
the time I was a small boy until his death at his old home 
some years ago, no man to whom I ever listened so carried 
me away a willing captive, or so charmed me by the music 
of his voice, and easy, eloquent, patriotic flow of language 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 115 

in public speech, as did Carlisle. He was a native of Virginia, 
had filled every office up to member of Congress, and when the 
war came on, seemed to me to be aflame, inside and out, with 
patriotic zeal for the Union. He was the foremost man in the 
first meeting held by those who favored the Stars and Stripes 
and the Government of the Fathers at the now city of Clarks- 
burg, on April 22, 1861. There his strong, earnest appeal 
to his old neighbors was most efifective, and for over two 
hours this educated, talented man not only held his audience, 
but put red blood and patriotic iron into the systems of many 
who were then wavering between secession and the Union. 
So when the restored government of Virginia became estab- 
lished that year, John S. Carlisle was sent to the U. S. Senate. 
Notwithstanding the fact that the Senate was then composed 
of stalwart men, statesmen who both dared and did things 
for country and party, yet among them all he stood so high 
that he seemed at one time to be the almost unanimous choice 
of the people for the Vice-Presidency on the party ticket with 
Lincoln in 1864. In an apparently evil hour, however, he 
wildly threw all these chances away, by there opposing the bill 
creating the State of West Virginia. After his speech on that 
issue, which at the time was momentous to both the admin- 
istration and the party which sent him to the Senate, he was 
a sort of political free lance for a time, and adhered first to 
one and then to the other of the two political parties ; but he 
was always great. While at military headquarters in Clarks- 
burg in 18G3-4, we occupied the Turner mansion, for its owner 
was an officer in the Confederate Army, and Carlisle's home 
was in plain view and in the adjoining block. There I often 
met the Senator and knew every member of his family as well. 
To me he never had a fault, but was simply weak in his party 
affiliations. Like many a Virginia gentleman of his day, he 



116 Recollections 

never knew what a dollar represented, neither thought nor 
cared about his personal finances, and to him his party ties 
were not of the kind that always bind. 

In 1876 I had been through Canada, New England, and 
eastern cities and en route home stopped off for some days 
at my old home, Fairmont. While there Carlisle and I talked 
to the assembled people, or, to be accurate, I talked and he 
made a speech, for the campaign was on and politics seemed 
running at fever heat. I had not heard him since the war, and 
thought then that my admiration of the many good things he 
always said was attributable to mere boyish fancy. But, to my 
surprise, Carlisle had not spoken five minutes when I was all 
attention, absorbed, and literally hanging on his every word, 
gesture, tone. The truth is, that the effect of his oratory then 
was the same in all things as it had been when I was a boy. 
He not only entranced me, but everybody else. When he 
took up and quoted from the Declaration of Independence, 
Washington's farewell address, and the Constitution of the 
United States, and kept us all in the clouds at his sweet will, 
for how long I never knew, it occurred to me that no 
other man ever did or could reach the lofty height of 
patriotic eloquence then attained by John S. Carlisle. Down 
on the street corner, after the speaking was over, I met my 
Democratic cousin, Mrs. Maria Raymond, who at the age of 
eighty - two is still quicker and smarter than chained light- 
ning, and in the talk told her of Carlisle's great speech. 
With that characteristic suspicion of a smile in her face, 
Mrs. Raymond remarked: "And so John is now making 
speeches for the Republican party? I am glad he is tem- 
porarily anchored, for he talks well ; but, Henry, you are vis- 
iting Fairmont, and as our guest we can't ask you to do the 
actual v/ork yourself ; yet let me suggest that you go and tell the 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 117 

managers of your party to take John down to the Mononga- 
hela River and drown him before sundown and while he is 
still in the faith ; for the good Lord only knows what party he 
may be in by tomorrow morning." 

Cassius Marcellus Clay, Kentucky. In the National 
Forestry Congress held at Cincinnati, Ohio, in April, 1882, 
Clay represented his State, and, as a volunteer, I represented 
mine; we had connecting rooms and for ten days were much 
together. There we met Charles Foster, Edward F. Noyes, 
Ward Lamon, Commissioner of Agriculture Loring, and many 
others of national renown. 

In our many long talks my friend always referred to his 
more distinguished kinsman as "Henry Clay," and to himself 
as "Clay." In his own esteem he was "the McNab of the 
McXabs." His ample white hair and full whiskers, piercing 
eyes, earnest talk, and rapid gestures, marked his as a learned, 
rare, unique, and interesting character. He was a captain in 
our war with Mexico and w^as for a short time a major-general 
in the Civil War ; but tiie public service about which he loved 
most to talk, and I to listen, was his residence at St. Peters- 
burg, in Russia, where he was our minister for about eight 
years, between 1861 to 1869. His description of the people 
of that country, their attributes, habits, etc., were simply fasci- 
nating. To him Russia was the greatest and best governed 
nation on earth. I had read and heard much of Siberia, the 
nihilists, etc., but when these were reverted to, he only an- 
swered that the strict enforcement of their penal laws was the 
only means of controlling that country, and justified the no- 
bility. He once laid down this proposition: "Russia is the 
only country that has, and for century after century pursues, 
a fixed and inflexible governmental policy ; for generations she 
has had her eye on Manchuria and will some day, God only 



j-jg Rfxollkctions 

knows when, own, control, and govern all that territory." In 
the late Russo-Japanese War his theory and pet nation both 
received a black eye at the hands of the alert Japs, and Japan 
may possibly yet fully control there. But I am not prognos- 
ticating; that country is a long way off; no kindred of mine 
engaged in that war, nor are they interested in any way in the 
row, and anyway, the weather it too hot now to speculate 
on how or by whom Manchuria may be controlled in the years 
that yet shall be. 

This "sage of Whitehall" graduated from Yale in 1832, 
and was later a lawyer, newspaper editor, soldier, diplomat, 
statesman ; and withal was a close and great reader of good 
books, and a still better speaker, talker, and thinker. A volume 
of his public addresses was printed in 1848, and since the 
war lie wrote and i)ublished a most interesting book of his 
memories. 

After sundry other experiences in that line, in 1894, he 
married his ward. He was then eighty-four, she fifteen, and 
it was not long until the divorce courts freed the unequal 
couple, as everybody else anticipated. The press then had much 
to say of this marriage and divorce, but when last we met, 
the old man told me that he gave Dora his name to save her 
from her fool friends, and I believed him. 

In i)olilics, he was originally a Whig, then became a 
Republican and later a Democrat. But he was an abolitionist 
per sc, and once edited a paper devoted to the freedom of the 
slaves, first at Lexington, Kentucky, until his office there was 
wrecked, then for a time at Cincinnati ; yet, for all his zeal and 
greatness, his political allies viewed him as a disturbing element. 
While he would fight a buzz-saw or a regiment in any 
conceivable way, yet in both offensive and defensive warfare 
his favorite weapon was the knife; and his demonstration 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 119 

of just how to hold it, thrust, cut, twist, etc., was both in- 
teresting and instructive to the knife-fighter. What with 
his vast knowledge, wise head, and understanding heart, in- 
dependent fortune, beautiful home, and unlimited capacity for 
entertaining his friends, his days might have been passed in 
peace and quiet ; but his wild temper unfitted him for the high 
duties of true citizenship, as well as leadership, and from early 
manhood (iown to his death only a few years ago, his life was 
distorted into constant conflicts and without one American 
precedent, presents a series of feuds, fights, duels ; and, in the 
language of his friend, he was "a stormy petrel in a stormy 
time." 

Sherrard Clemens, Wheeling, West Virginia. This 
learned, clear-headed lawyer, wise statesman and genuine gen- 
tleman, born in my native State, was the lifelong friend of 
my father, and after filling other Federal and State offices, 
thrice represented our old district in the U. S. Congress, end- 
mg in 186 1. He was the first public man in our country to 
keep on hand an alphabetical classified list of his constituents, 
so as to mail to each, according to his political influence, the 
current public literature of the day. While in Congress, in 
1859, he fought a duel with O. Jennings Wise, of Richmond, 
Virginia, was thereby lamed for life in the hip, retired from 
public gaze at the commencement of our Civil War, and finally 
died in the city of St. Louis not long ago. So far as recalled, 
his duel with Wise was among the very last of such encounters 
in high life, and since then such wrangles among gentlemen 
are no longer settled "on the field of honor." 

Under the direction of the National Committee, Clemens 
campaigned this State for the Democratic ticket in 1874 and 
again in 1876. As a public speaker he was able, pleasing, 
pungent, and forceful, and it is with pleasure I now recall the 



120 Recollections 

fact that when he came to Gallatin in these campaigns, we en- 
tertained him at our home and I introduced him to his audi- 
ences. Although a staunch Republican, yet neither collar nor 
strings encumbered me, nor did party politics separate my 
friends and myself. 

In 1874 close work and practice on the circuit were wear- 
ing on me, and I then had a long talk with Clemens as to the 
advisability of quitting the country and opening a law office 
in some large city. He listened kindly and patiently, and then, 
in his slow and deliberate way, said: "After campaigning all 
through your bailiwick, I know your practice and people and 
for more than a generation have known your family. \oa 
know it is said that 'God made the country and man made 
the town,' and that an old chap once gave a young fellow con- 
templating matrimcny the terse advise, 'Don't.' I do not ad- 
vise you, but my judgment is that you would better remain at 
Gallatin. In a large city you are liable to lose your identity 
and simply become one of the leaves in a vast forest." 

Thomas Theodore Crittenden, of Kansas City, Mis- 
souri, was born in Kentucky, in 1832, removed to Missouri 
in 1856, and died in this city on May 29, 1909. In the Civil 
War he was the lieutenant-colonel of the Missouri cavalry 
regiment commanded by Colonel John F. Philips ; became the 
attorney-general of his adopted State in 1864; represented the 
Warrensburg district in the Congress of the United States 
for four years, ending in 1879; was for four years the Gov- 
ernor of Missouri ; consul-general to the city of Mexico for 
four years, ending in 1897; and at the time of his death had 
long held the judicial position of Referee in Bankruptcy under 
the appointment of his lifelong friend, Judge Philips. 

He read law under his distinguished uncle, John J. Crit- 
tenden, at Frankfort, in his native State; was there admitted 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 121 

to the bar and married in 1855 ; was the head of the great law 
firm of Crittenden & Cockrell until the latter was sent to the 
United States Senate in 1875, and was for over four years, end- 
ing in 1889, a member of the law firm of Crittenden, McDougal 
& Stiles, at Kansas City, composed of himself, the writer here- 
of, and Judge Edward H. Stiles. 

On November 13, 1900, the golden wedding of my good 
friend was celebrated, and in honor of Governor and Mrs. 
Crittenden I attended that function in full evening dress. In 
like "glad clothes" I always went to bar banquets here at 
home; and in other places East, having the time, I had so 
attended parties and balls, and there have been heard to raise 
my voice in song, and even dance a few measures with the 
belles ; but never before at home. My profession or inclination 
had here driven me into the habits of a sort of studious animal ; 
work and books were preferred to the pleasures of life; social 
matters did not interest me, and some way I always had pre- 
vious engagements, or other excuse equally bad ; but that time 
the rule was suspended, and, decked out in the garb of a gen- 
tleman of leisure, I not only went, but actually enjoyed it. 
After dainty refreshments were served, I called the assembled 
multitude to order and, without a word of previous warning, 
introduced our one "old man eloquent," in these words : 
"Among the many guests who by their presence here tonight 
honor themselves in honoring our distinguished host and host- 
ess, there is one — a man wise of head, generous of heart, 
eloquent of tongue — who has perhaps known Governor and 
Mrs. Crittenden longer and better than any other guest. And 
I am sure that I but voice the sentiments of each and every 
person now under this hospitable roof in saying that all would 
be delighted to hear such remarks as this lifelong friend may 



122 Recollections 

see fit to make upon this auspicious occasion. I refer to, now 
call upon, and present Judge John F. Philips." 

As soon as he regained his breath, Judge Philips, as usual, 
responded in his happy and beautiful way, and, if possible, 
added to his fame in the prettiest speech of his life. 

Full of years and honors, the Governor was called to his 
rest, and the bar of this city, upon the call of his old war-time 
commander, Judge Philips, here met at the U. S. Circuit Court 
rooms and there unanimously adopted and spread upon the 
records of the court a set of memorial resolutions prepared 
and signed by myself, Judge Stiles, and Judge Willard P. Hall, 
as the members of that committee. In then oresenting that 
report, on July lo, 1909, I said: 

"May it please your Honor: 

"Commissioned by my fellow-members of your committee 
to prepare and present this memorial to the late Governor 
Crittenden, I here })erform, that sad duty ; and now move that 
the memorial read be accepted, filed, and adopteci, and later 
spread at length upon the records of this court. 

"In thus paying my last tribute of respect to a character 
both rare and lofty, I may be permitted to lay an additional 
wreath upon the newly made grave of this kind-hearted man, 
accomi)lislied gentleman, r\pe scholar, gallant soldier, faithful 
patriot, and venerable lawyer. 

"As the personal friend of Governor Crittenden for more 
than forty years, and as one of his law partners for a part 
of that time, I knew the man and his methods, personally, pro- 
fessionally, and closely. And now that he is mustered out of 
life and no longer shares in our trials or triumphs, without 
reserve or qualification this may be said of him: That on 
account of his intelligent interest in and absorbtion with public 
affairs, his work and standing as a lawyer have been under- 
estimated by both his brethren at the bar and the public, for 
he was strong, able, fearless in his chosen profession. 

"Yet to me, the crowning glory of his long life was always 
found in the virtue of that splendid courtesy and profound 
deference which he characteristically and consistently empha- 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 123 

sized in his daily contact with all classes of his fellows, rich 
and poor, high and low, alike. 

"Strikingly handsome of form and face, he was a con- 
spicuous commander among soldiers ; loving his kind, and a 
man of rarest mental and physical courage, he never turned 
his back on friend or foe; and to life's close was everywhere 
recognized as a prince among lawyers, a king among men and 
women." 

Many other lawyer friends spoke in terms of highest 
praise of their dead friend, among them Judges Stiles, Hall, 
Scarritt, and William S. Cowherd; but the most beautiful, 
touching, and tender of them all were the closing words of 
his lifelong friend, associate and war comrade, Judge Philips, 
who in part said of their past: 

"His Mentor and exemplar was that rugged commoner, 
broad-minded statesman, great lawyer, and sincere patriot, 
John J. Crittenden, in whose shadow small men might walk, 
under whose approving smile and inspiring example Tom 
Crittenden grew into a splendid manhood. 

"The recollection of my friend recalls to me the poetry 
and best epic of my life. At old Center College we walked 
together over the campus, where the diamonds sparkled in the 
dew and the birds sang and wooed. We sat around the same 
student-table, where we toiled over our algebra, the logarithms, 
trigonometry, and the dififerential calculus ; where we trans- 
lated \'irgil. Delphini. Tacitus, and Cicero de Officiis ; Xeno- 
phon's Anabasis. Thucydides, and Demosthenes' Orations; 
and puzzled our brains over the text-books on natural and 
mental philosophy, logic, and the intricacies of international 
law. While we whetted to keen edge on each other our 
witticisms, there was no occasion for putting the foil on the 
rapier of sarcasm, as we never interchanged dangerous thrusts. 
We dedicated poems, such as they were, to the same imaginary 
goddesses, but we practiced epistolary rhetoric on our own 
'angel in dimity.' 

"Almost beneath the same rainbow we hung out our signs, 
as attorneys at law. When the darkening clouds of the im- 
pending civil strife began to thicken over the Western and 
Southern borders, we closed our law offices, doffed the garb 
of peace, and put on the habiliments of grim war. Side by 
side we marched to meet the foe; and in the deadly charge 



124 Recollections 

our hearts beat as with one pulse. When the shades of night 
fell from the sky, hushing the uproar, we pillowed our heads 
in the saddle and stretched our weary limbs on the earth, side 
by side, beneath our blankets. Together we arose at the same 
alarm from the sentry, or at the same morning reveille. At 
the same army chest we ate our rations, laughed and joUied, 
and never reckoned the accounts. 

"He had little taste for the tedium and required patience 
of the drill-ground, but what a splendid soldier he was ! The 
only order he cared for was. 'Forward and at them !' Then, 
casting aside all prescribed tactics and maneuvers, he went in, 
leading but not directing the charge, prodigal of life, reckoning 
little of the danger; while every company guidon told where 
he was in the fray. I can yet see the fire in those marvelous 
eyes, and his face white with the rage of the encounter, as he 
rode up to salute and report. 

"From all these associations came to us that feeling of 
attachment and confidence which through all the years, from 
boyhood to manhood and to old age, lost nothing of its in- 
tensity, a feeling which the fellow-collegian and old soldier only 
can fully understand. 

"There was in the closing scene of his fruitful life a co- 
incidence which, to my eye of faith, augured for him a bright 
resurrection mom. It was his habit to arise from his bed with 
the sun. On that beautiful May morning, just as the streak- 
ings of the rising sun began to gild the eastern horizon, his 
brave heart ceased to beat, and, in the rich foliage of fame, 
the last act of the drama of his life closed. 

" 'So fades the summer cloud away, 

So sinks the gale when storms are o'er; 
So gently shuts the eye of day, 
So dies a wave along the shore.' " 

Jefferson Davis, Mississippi. One evening, about 1874, 
I was en route from Kansas City to St. Louis on what is now 
the Wabash Railroad, and, after the evening meal at R. & I. 
Junction, went into the smoking compartment of the Pullman 
for my after-dinner cigar. There sat all alone an elderly gen- 
tleman with close-cropped whitish hair and full whiskers, 
smoking in silence. No one else was there; I lighted my cigar 
and we soon fell into a pleasant and interesting conversation. 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 125 

From his accent and talk I soon discovered that he was 
a Southern gentleman of the old school and had gone with 
his people into the Confederacy, while he in turn knew I had 
been on the other side. The subject uppermost in the mind 
of each turned upon the Civil War, then not long past, and, 
without the faintest trace of bitterness or regret upon the part 
of either, much of this was again gone over. The intimate 
knowledge shown by my companion of the history and achieve- 
ments of the statesmen, soldiers, and publicists of recent years 
was limitless, and, with a skill, ability, and intimacy astonish- 
ing to me, he discussed them all. In all this his manner was 
most charming, his talk instructive as well as entertaining; 
I only knew that he was one of the best educated, cultivated, 
and most accomplished talkers I had ever met, and never once 
suspected his identity. After we had long talked and smoKeJ, 
a gentleman appeared at the compartment curtain and, address- 
ing my traveling friend, said: "Pardon me, ]\Ir. President, 
but we think it is high time you were retiring." With a 
courteous, gracious smile my friend replied : "Excuse me 
a few minutes longer, Colonel ; I am having an interesting 
talk with this young man, and just as soon as we find a stop- 
ping-place, I will join you." At that moment I first realized 
that for four hours I had been listening to and talking with 
the famous ex-President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. 

The "stopping-place" of which he spoke never came, but 
after a time good-nights were exchanged and each retired. 
The next morning, at the old Planters' House in St. Louis, my 
old friend General Beauregard duly presented me to "Pres- 
ident Davis"; we breakfasted at the same table; there we had 
another delightful hour, and that was my last talk with the 
once high-priest of the lost cause. 

Alexander Monroe Dockery, Gallatin, Missouri, was 



126 Recollkctions 

born, reared, and educated within this State, the only child of 
a distinguished Methodist divine. In his early manhood he 
practiced his profession, as a physician and surgeon, at Linneus 
and Cliillicothe, until the spring of 1874, when he removed to 
liis present location, and there became the cashier of a bank, 
of which Thomas B. Yates was the president. lie was married 
to Miss Mary E. Bird, of Cliillicothe, in 1869; was elected 
and served as Alayor of Gallatin in 1880, and has for many 
years past been one of the most prominent and active Masons 
in the State. 

In 1882 he was first elected to the Congress of the United' 
States, and with distinguished ability continued to serve all 
the people in the Gallatin district in that office for sixteen 
consecutive }ears. 

In his first race for Congress, I was there the chairman' 
of the Republican Congressional Committee. The political fight 
was hot and the interest great. During the campaign a mem- 
ber of my committee expressed to me at Gallatin, for dis- 
tribution throughout the district, a large number of printed 
circulars containing an infamous attack upon Dockery, which,, 
of course, 1 did not believe. With increasing anger, I read. 
this attack in full. Then I placed one copy of the circular in. 
a drawer of my desk, put another in my pocket, and de- 
liberately burned up all other copies. With the copy in my 
pocket, I at once went over to Dockery 's bank, gave the copy 
to Mr. Yates, who was the chairman of the Democratic Com- 
gressional Committee, and told him the whole story. Then: 
1 said: "Air. Yates, I want to defeat Dr. Dockery on prin- 
ciple and because he is a Democrat ; but while I am at the head 
of this committee no candidate of the opposition shall be here- 
defeated on a false issue." Weeks afterward Yates told me- 
that while he and Dockery were driving in a, buggy over the 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have AIet 127 

prairie from Kingston to Hamilton, after both had spoken 
to the people in that campaign, he gave Dockery the copy of 
that attack and told him the whole story as I had given it to 
him; that without a word Dockery listened to all he said and 
read every word of the bitter attack ; but, turning to him after 
a long silence, he saw the tears rolling down Dockery 's face ! 
To me Dockery never once opened his lips on the subject from 
that day to this. But, from his many acts of kindness to me 
in all the long years intervening since that incident closed, I 
believe Dockery still gratefully bears it all in mind, although 
in absolute silence. He was never given to lavish entertain- 
ment, as are some statesmen, but throughout his lengiuy con- 
gressional career, T was often professionally at the Nation's 
capital, and noticed that, however busy with public duties. 
Dr. Dockery and his good wife never failed to show me some 
special attention in a drive, dinner, theater party, or the like, 
and sometimes all of these. 

In 1900, without opposition, his party nominated him 
for Governor of Missouri. He was elected and for four years 
held that high office. In all the public positions which he has 
filled with honor to himself and credit to the people, if any 
official was ever more efficient, or did more close, hard, earnest, 
intelligent work for the people he loved, that officer I never 
knew. 

Against my repeated protest. Governor Dockery first ap- 
pointed me as one of the managers of the Colony for the Feeble- 
Minded and Epileptic, at Marshall, I attended many meetings 
of that Board and was just getting warmed up in the work, 
when the Governor called me up over the long-distance tele- 
phone one day and blandly advised me that my resignation 
would be accepted. I said to him : "Thank God for that ! you 
shall have it just as soon as I can dictate it to my stenog^ 



12S Recollections 

rapher." Then he said : "Hold on, Mack, I want to promote 
you; I am goings to appoint you as a member of the Missouri 
World's Fair Commission." But I answered: "Now, Doctor, 
for Heaven's salce don't do that; you ought to appoint some 
man who is either young or rich or ambitious ; I am neither, 
and don't want the place." In his politely emphatic way he 
said: "Well, I have your commission made out now and 
if you decline to serve, the responsibility will be yours." So, 
in the interest of both city and the Governor, I complied with 
his request, and served on the Commission, along with J. O. 
Allison, B. H. Bonfoey, M. T. Davis, N. H. Gentry, W. H. 
Marshall, F. J. Moss, L. F. Parker, and D. P. Stroup, for over 
a year. Among our many other duties, we attended the Pan- 
American Exposition at Buffalo, in New York ; selected a site 
for the Missouri building at the great World's Fair in St. 
Louis; and were often in consultation with the Government 
Commission, headed by that prince among organizers, David 
R. Francis. My health being somewhat impaired, I spent the 
early part of 1902 in Colorado, Texas, and New Mexico, in 
recuperating. While down in the latter Territory, another 
letter came to me from the Governor, calling me home for the 
reason that he wished to make me the Republican member of 
the Kansas City Board of Election Commissioners. So I came 
home. I had a short talk with Governor Dockery, in which he 
said: "I have no demands or even requests to make, but do 
suggest that you will take the time to accept this office and 
see to it that Kansas City has fair and honest elections." For 
over three years, from August, 1902, I served the State in 
the new office and drew the salary with surprising regularity. 
Aside from election times, when the responsibility was great, 
the minority member of that board has but little to look after 
or think about except his pay. My Democratic associates 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 129 

there were my former law partner, Frank P. Sebree, and Ben 
F. Paxton. Better men are not found; we had no discords 
or disputes, and the people reaped the reward of fair elections. 
However, the new office did not lessen my esteem for my 
former associates, and I then wrote and explained existing 
conditions to the Missouri World's Fair Commission, and in 
closing it said : 

"While I am, and for thirty years have been, personally 
fond of the Governor and stand ready to do for him almost 
any sort of favor at any time, yet I regretted, and always 
will regret, the necessity which impelled me to sever my official 
connection with the Missouri World's Fair Commission. I 
have lived a long time, and in many relations of a happy yet 
busy life have been associated with many kinds and classes 
of men ; yet in all these years I have never met or been as- 
sociated with nobler, manlier men, a more pleasant, generous, 
genial, and congenial body of gentlemen, than my late as- 
sociates on that Commission. And wherever your several lots 
may be cast in the veiled future, whatsoever may be in store 
for youi selves or for me in the years that shall be. my blessing 
and my benediction shall go with each of you until the Master 
shall call me to that bourne whence 'no traveler returns.' " 

While on the Election Board named, I also served as a 
member of the Kansas City World's Fair Commission and 
assisted in securing the appropriation for and erecting in the 
Model City on the World's Fair ground that far-famed build- 
ing known as the Kansas City Casino. The other members 
were E. T. Allen, F. D. Crabbs, D. J. Dean, W. S. Dickey, 
J. H. Hawthorne, F. M. Howe, Franklin Hudson, J. C. Mc- 
Coy, C. J. Schmeltzer, E. F. Swinney, A. A. Whipple, and 
Robert F. Winter. At the formal dedication of the Casino 
at the grounds in St. Louis in the early summer of 1904, at 
the request of the Commission, I made a short talk and said, 
among other things : 



130 RECOLLIiCTIONS 

"My Friends: 

"A story heard at some forgotten time and place along 
life's highway may with propriety be here recalled: 

"A famous sculptor had completed his work — a statue of 
one of the great ones of earth, designed for and dedicated 
to the people. 

"A vast concourse of his countrymen were present and 
participated in the ceremonies at the formal unveiling of his 
masterpiece. 

"Orators, statesmen, and critics had spoken words of 
highest commendation and warmest praise of the marvelous 
result of his labors. When called upon for his response to 
all this, the gifted artist modestly, yet affectionately and 
proudly, ]:)laced his hand upon his statue and simply said : 
"This is my speech.' 

"As that artist by his rare skill and genius was enabled 
to and did create from a crude and meaningless block of 
marble a human form and face so perfect that it was at once 
the pride of as well as an honor to his country, so within 
the past forty years, by working with the same intelligence, 
energy, and perseverance which actuated and inspired the 
sculptor, have the men of Kansas City created from an in- 
consequential and straggling hamlet along the banks of the 
"broad Missouri a splendid progressive city, with a present 
population of three hundred thousand of happy and pros- 
perous people. 

" 'Tell it not in Gath ; publish it not in the streets of 
Askelon ;' but if and when called upon to prophesy privately 
to thy friend, then say thou unto him, that by reason of its 
geographical location, its environment, its commercial and in- 
dustrial advantages, the manifest destiny of Kansas City is 
to increase in greatness as long as rivers flow out to the sea 
and old Ocean lifts his waves to the storm; aye, 

" 'Till the sun grows cold 
And the stars are old, 
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold.' 

"Formally opening wide the doors of this Casino and 
dedicating it to public use — cordially inviting the world to be- 
come our guest ; tendering the freedom of both city and build- 
ing to all — the people of Kansas City desire its guests, present 
and prospective, to understand and appreciate this fact, that 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 131 

\vhile proud of our imperial State of Missouri, we are prouder 
:still of the growth, development, and achievements of Kansas 
City, and have faith sublime in its future; yet, as the baby of 
the household is always dearest to tlie heart of the good 
mother, so, of all its cherished public possessions, Kansas City 
is today 'proudest of this beautiful building. It is the latest 
as well as the daintiest darling of all of the manifold bless- 
ings which have been lavishly showered upon our people 
through the energy and sagacity of our enterprising business 
men, as well as of those coming to us through the justice and 
beneficence, the kindness and the goodness of God and man. 
"Authorized to speak and now speaking for the people 
of Kansas City. I can do no better than to follow the well- 
known Kansas City habit of doing things rather than saying 
them. Hence to the Governor of Missouri and to the several 
members of the Missouri World's Fair Commission I first 
return the grateful thanks of the people of Kansas City for 
their just and generous recognition of the rights of the second 
city of our State; and in conclusion point to that strong, grow- 
ing, young metropolis at the mouth of the Kaw. and, with all 
the afifectionate yet modest pride which characterized the great 
artist, simply add — 'Kansas City is my speech.' " 

Since his retirement from office in 1905, Governor Dock- 
ery has persistently refused to stand as a candidate for any 
high official position, though often urged to do so by those 
who best know and appreciate the man. He is still a powerful 
public speaker, clear writer, hard worker; and when not en- 
gaged in looking after Democratic politics, or the ^Methodist 
Church or Masonic affairs, is as busy as a snake-doctor in 
attending to the lesser matters of his neighbors and friends 
at Gallatin, for he is built that way and simply cannot remain 
idle. 

Among the many close personal and political friends of 
his city, none stood nearer than Thomas J. Grain, who was laid 
to rest there only the other day. When Mrs. Grain died in 
1905, the Governor and I were among her honorary pall- 
bearers. At the urgent solicitation of the good old friend who 



132 Recollections 

was thus left to struggle on his last few days alone, I then 

wrote, and published in the local papers of her city, this little 

tribute : 

"Thirty-nine years ago I became a citizen of an inland 
Missouri town. Remote from railroads, it was then a quiet, 
peaceful place, yet prosperous. The rare force and character 
of the people there stamped them as the most moral, truthful, 
honest. God-fearing, and human-loving I had ever known. 
The population has several times doubled since that far-away 
day; costly and elegant schools, churches, residences, and 
business blocks have replaced those then familiar to me; but 
drifting years and the innumerable changes wrought by the 
resistless hand of Time have brought no change in the high 
class and character of the citizenship of the town. For years 
I lived among them, blessed always with their precept and 
exani])le. Then came the removal to a wider, busier field; 
yet the hurry of the busy, bustling city has never for a day 
dimmed my high appreciation of the warm affection for those 
with whom I first cast my lot in Missouri. 

"When I left there, two decades ago, I knew everybody 
in the town and surrounding country; but when I went back 
on last Sunday, I recognized on the streets only a comparative 
few of my many familiars of the old days. The frosts of 
years had touched them, as well as their old friend ; they 
were no longer young, nor was I. But out in the cemetery 
I knew everybody; nearly all my friends of the long ago rest 
there now. A name upon a tomb revived memories of faces, 
forms, scenes, and incidents in the once happy, active, useful 
life of many and many a beloved friend who had slumbered 
for years in the grave. And the truth of the adage, 'The 
dead arc very many, the living few,' appealed to me as never 
before. 

"Among my first acquaintances of the town was a then 
newly married couple, whose simple, unaffected piety and love 
and practice of the right attracted me, and when, three years 
later, I took my bride to the town, the hearts and the home 
of this good couple were open to us, and from that day on, 
my wife and I were blessed with their friendship and en- 
couragement. A happier couple, or more considerate and 
congenial, or better matched, no one ever saw. They thought 
and acted always upon the same lines, were genial and gentle. 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 133 

tender and true, charitable and hospitable, devoted to each 
other, as well as to their kindred and friends ; and as the 
quiet meadow brook, ever deepening and widening, flows on 
and on its winding way to the sea of Time, so the useful, 
unselfish lives of this noble couple flowed on and on in the 
same channel and way, out toward the great ocean of Eternity. 

"In His infinite wisdom, the beneficent Giver of all good 
may have made a better husband and wife; somewhere in 
this wide world may have lived a man and woman who 
quietly accomplished more real good for neighbors and friends, 
and were at once a greater blessing, a sweeter benediction, to 
all with whom they came in contact ; but such a man and wife 
I have never known. 

"It is no reflection upon any one of the many clear- 
headed and kind-hearted women of this town to say that not 
one of them, in the past forty years, has done so much to 
raise up the bowed-down, to heal the broken-hearted, to up- 
lift the poor, needy, and suffering of that community as did 
this good woman. 

"When both were fairly beyond the allotted 'three score 
years and ten,' resting from the activities of their earlier life, 
but still doing good, the decree went forth that 'the silver 
cord be loosed,' and the one was taken, the other left. The 
death of one brought to the other the saddest human bereave- 
ment that can come to man. 

"In common with hundreds of other old friends, I at- 
tended the funeral to pay my last tribute of respect to the 
memory of one of the noblest and best of women, and to 
mingle my tears of earnest, heart-felt grief with those of the 
stricken husband and sorrowing friends. With tender, loving 
hands we laid away in the cemetery on the hill the cold, dead, 
dumb form of the gentle wife; while selfish sorrow for our 
own personal loss was swallowed up and lost in deepest sym- 
pathy for the lonely and disconsolate husband. For her, all 
was light ; for him, all darkness. 

"The town of which I write is Gallatin ; the husband and 
wife, Mr, and Mrs. Thomas J. Grain. H. C. McD." 

John James Ingalls, Atchison, Kansas. In the political 
upheaval which retired Ingalls from the U. S. Senate, in 1891, 
after eighteen years of memorable public service as the clear- 



134 Recollections 

est. ablest word-user and best public speaker Kansas ever 
sent to that distinguished body of American statesmen, I was 
cu route home from Colorado, and when our train reached 
Topeka, learned that the Legislature by vote on that day had 
chosen an excellent citizen who wore long whiskers and bore 
the euphonious name of Peffer as the Populistic successor of 
Ingalls. As our train sped eastward over their wide prairies 
everyone seemed to know that the tug of war was coming 
to a speedy showdown, every coach was filled with enthusiastic 
People's Party men, and my sleeper even was loaded to the 
guards with them, long before the capital was in sight. One 
expectant Populist politician was rushing up and down in our 
Pullman ; I was ostensibly reading a book, not saying a word, 
sitting there chewing the cud, and incidentally sizing up that 
crowd. That son of the soil at last called out in a loud voice, 
'"Is there a Alissourian on board?" Without looking up from 
the book, I raised my right hand. With two bottles of beer 
held by the necks in his left hand, this prohibitionist asked me, 
"Have you a corkscrew?" Still silent, with eyes glued upon 
the book, I produced that necessary traveling companion of 
every old-time Southern gentleman, and passed it to him amid 
the wild laughter of his friends. For the next hour or so 
the supply of this Teutonic beverage seemed inexhaustible, 
Peffer's adherents must have consumed gallons of it, and that 
corkscrew came back to me before we reached their destination 
as bright and free from tinge of rust as if it had passed 
through a German campaign. While they were in our car, 
I spoke but once, in answer to repeated invitations to join 
them: "No, I thank you; I never drink beer; my tipple is 
good old Bourbon whisky." When our train finally stopped 
at Topeka, the legislative vote had just been taken, the Rock 
Island platform was alive with wild-eyed, hatless lunatics, 
who were surging back and forth through the gusty mid- 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 135 

winter rain and crying out: "Ingalls is defeated'" "The 
people are on top!" "Peffer is elected!" "Down with cor- 
porations and up with the farmer!" "Glory to God'" and the 
like. At that sight the gods might well have joined the 
heavens m weeping rainy tears, as well as the wind at his 
daily prayers that hour, for the lost reason of the people- 
good, but gone wrong. A majority finally came back into the 
fold all nght, but for a long time Kansas politically wandered 
in outer darkness. 

Along in the early '80s, Senator Ingalls went from his 
home up to Gallatin to consult with me about my New Or- 
leans interview, then just printed in the Kansas City Journal 
upon the political situation and conditions in our Southern 
States, and more especially upon the race question. After 
many weeks devoted to the study of these questions while 
down m the far South, I had expressed my personal views 
upon the situation with such vigor and clearness that, on the 
alert always for political ammunition, the Senator hoped I 
might give him some pointers. In the day we .pent together 
I gave h.m the full benefit of all the facts, conclusions, etc., in 
my possession ; but cannot forget his eagerness and earnestness 
for light ; nor his repeated emphasis of this proposition : "The 
black man presents today the great unsolved problem in world- 
wide politics." Ingalls is gone now, but he was right upon 
this question, as he generally was; and long after this gen- 
eration has passed into the unknown, the race proposition 
will confront the people and will still be an unsolved problem 
Politicians, statesmen, publicists may wrangle over it in the 
hereafter, but the solution is a long way off. 

During the Frank James murder trial at Gallatin, in the 
summer of 1883. Ingalls and his fellow-townsman. Noble L 
Prentis, the clear writer and thinker whom all Kansans loved 
and honored, spent some days there at my office. Their wise 



136 Recollections 

and witty stories at that visit would alone fill a volume. This 
one true tale "made a hit" with Ingalls, and occurred at Car- 
rollton, Missouri, at the close of the Civil War: The South- 
ern JMethodists of that town erected a brand-new church and 
were careful to inscribe on its historical tablet the words, ''M. 
E. Church (South) of Carrollton." The newly made freedmen 
of tlie vicinity, with that religious enthusiasm which always 
characterizes their race, also erected a new church there and 
unconsciously imitated their white brethren by placing a flam- 
ing and large tablet which was intended to designate their 
place of worship ; but in their zeal the colored artist unhappily 
omitted the parentheses around the word "North," and when 
that historical tablet was erected it bore this legend : "African 
AI. E. Church North of Christ" ! 

In the school geographies of, say, sixty years back, all that 
wide sweep of country now included in western Kansas and 
eastern Colorado was dotted and marked "The Great American 
Desert." Then it was the home and haunt of the Indian and 
buffalo. Indeed, in going through that very country over the 
Sante Fe Railroad soon after its completion, in company with 
a Mexican War veteran, he pointed out to me the places where, 
on their westward march to the Alexican War, they saw trees 
and grasses in 1846 for the last and first times ; their last vege- 
tation was then seen at Cow Creek, where Hutchinson, Kan- 
sas, now stands, and their next gladsome sight of it was across 
the Raton Pass and about Willow Springs in New Mexico; 
while the last Indian massacre in which I took any part, and 
the last herd of wild buffalo I ever saw, was out about Lakin, 
Kansas, in 1874. At that day "the wise men of the East" 
firmly believed western Kansas semi-arid and adapted only 
for buffalo pasturage and grazing-ground for the long-horned 
cattle of the plains. Judicious advertising and printers' ink 
may in a measure account for the wondrous transformation: 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 137 

for the farms, school-houses, churches, telephones, and motor 
cars now seen there on every hand; but within my day in 
the West that once howling wilderness has changed to one of 
the most fertile and populous portions of our country. Men 
and women — strong, sturdy, fearless. Western pioneers — have 
made Kansas what it is today, filled it with prosperous, wide- 
awake, happy, and contented people, and towards making it 
free and great and rich no man within its borders did more 
than this same John James Ingalls. 

The writings and speeches of Ingalls have been known to 
the studious for years. Whether his pen pictures were printed 
in books, magazines, or newspapers, his words of sense and 
sentiment were recognized at a glance, while his scholarly, 
polished, snappy epigrams will be quoted long after his fame 
as a Kansas senator has faded from the memory of men. Of 
all these, the emanation from his pen most widely known is 
his sonnet on "Opportunity." When his old friend and mine. 
Colonel James N. Burnes, of St. Joseph, Missouri, passed 
away in 1889, memorial addresses were not only delivered in 
the lower House of Congress, of which Burnes was then a 
member, but also in the Senate, Before the latter. Senator 
Ingalls delivered an address of rare power and pathos. The 
press severely criticised this effort at the time and claimed that 
he had plagiarized the dissertation of Massillon on "Immor- 
tality." While these two great minds might have run in the 
same channel, yet I could not believe that the Senator had 
taken his speech from Massillon, for he was alone always 
equal to any emergency. So, side by side, the two efforts 
were placed and then carefully studied for hours, and my con- 
clusion then was that if Ingalls had unconsciously followed 
this precedent, then he was still entitled to greatest credit, for 
the reason that no other man could have taken up Massillon 



138 Recollections 

ami made the Barnes memorial so beautiful and good as had 
Senator Ingalls. 

James IL Lane went to Kansas Territory as an Indiana 
Democrat with the evident intent to represent the national 
policies of President Pierce and oppose the Free State policies 
of the Emigrant Aid Societies of New England. On June 2^, 
1855, he was the chairman of the Lawrence Democratic Con- 
vention and is said to have written its resolutions. Their Ter- 
ritorial "Declaration of Lidependence" was an affirmance of 
their ability to manage their own affairs ; they then requested all 
others to let Kansas alone, and opposed all "illegal voting from 
any quarter." There had been some friction between the anti- 
and pro-slavery parties prior to this date, but no open con- 
flict; and all the border war between the Free State men, on 
the one hand, and the Pro-slavery Alissourians, on the other, 
occurred after this Convention. From the fact that Aid Com- 
panies had been sending to that Territory men, arms, and 
money to there make a free State, and the well-known and 
prominent part theretofore taken by their chairman, as the late 
Democratic Lieutenant-Governor and congressman from In- 
diana, it was assumed that the resolutions adopted contem- 
plated a direct slap in the face to New England men and 
methods and were not intended to apply to Alissourians. But 
with the keen foresight of an experienced and adroit politician, 
Lane very soon saw the trend of public sentiment, quickly 
changed front, early espoused the cause and easily became 
the leader of the Free State forces ; he stood on the picket-line 
shouting, "Free homes for free men !" louder and stronger than 
his fellows, and the proverbial zeal of the apostate \Nias never 
better illustrated. When Kansas became a State in 1861, 
Lane was a strong Republican and then was made one of its 
first U. S. senators, for his political work was unceasing and 
his ambition boundless. Listening to his somewhat florid, but 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 139 

always earnest, magnetic, and fervid oratory in that high tri- 
bunal, as I often did, it was not difficult to find the source of 
wondrous power over his people and party, for the "grim 
chief" always led. His death by his own hand at Leavenworth, 
in July, 1866, left his party and the State practically without 
a great national leader until Ingalls became seated as U. S. 
senator, on March 4. 1873. 

Unlike the older States, the pioneers who settle any new 
country tender high premiums for the wisdom, push, energy, 
and mental capacity of the ambitious young man. When In- 
galls located in the Territory in 1858, all were commoners in 
Kansas ; the soil was virgin ; they there had no inherited states- 
manship ; no one could claim that he was entitled to any public 
position on account of prestige of ancestry, for every comer 
stood upon an equal footing — brains, energy, and foresight won 
out. By virtue of his commanding position and unlimited 
power, Lane had been a worshiped or feared, beloved or hated 
leader. The position of Ingalls as a leader at once became 
unique, scholarly, intellectual, and so continued until his death 
on August 16, 1900; but his leadership always had behind it 
wisdom and learning; his brain, tongue, and pen always laid 
down and enforced the thoughts and theories of the trained, 
scholarly, forceful, intellectual athlete. On occasions Ingalls 
was sarcastic, even vitriolic; he never was a politician, but 
from the day he landed in Kansas until the closing scene, by 
sheer force of his vast learning and intellectual power as 
scholar, speaker, word-painter, he wielded a rapier as sharp 
and keen as a Damascus blade, maintained his proud position 
as the foremost citizen of the State, and was always the same 
alert, kind-hearted, level-headed gentleman. 

For many years questions of local politics have neither 
concerned nor even amused me; but in national affairs I occa- 



140 Recollections 

sionally fear the country will go to "the demnition bowwows" 
unless I make a few talks. I confess that in the campaign of 
1896 I made some speeches on the money question which found 
their way into newspapers, and one of the last autograph 
letters I ever had from Ingalls urged me to print these efforts 
in pamphlet form and mail him a copy. 

From the press accounts of the first election of Ingalls 
as the successor of Samuel C. Pomeroy in the Senate, from 
memory I now recall these incidents: In the legislative joint 
session, a scene of the wildest confusion followed Senator 
York's dramatic expose of Pomeroy ; nominations were made, 
votes called, motions made, and everything was in an up- 
roar. But one man that ever lived in Kansas could have 
poured oil on the troubled waters and restored order — and 
Jim Lane was dead. When the final vote was being taken, 
one legislator from the short-grass country was heard to say: 
"We were all running wild, stampeded like a herd of Texas 
steers; our sole object was to defeat the briber, most of our 
fellows were voting for one 'Jingles,' or Ingalls,' or somebody 
I didn't know, and when my name was at last reached, I fol- 
lowed suit; my vote was counted for Ingalls, who won; but 
what name I gave, or who the hell I voted for, I don't know 
today, and the only thing I am certain about is that I didn't 
vote for Pomeroy." Tall, straight, picturesque, slender, stately, 
when it was all over, this mental athlete coolly buttoned his 
coat about him and placidly said: "While surprised and grat- 
ified, my one consolation is that I came from my home on a 
pass and the gross sum of money which my entire campaign 
cost me was the thirty-five cents I paid for my luncheon today 
down the street at a restaurant." 

The last time I recollect to have met Senator Ingalls was 
at Washington, in 1898, when he and his old-time Kansas 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 141 

friend. Judge Johnston, with James Lane Allen and myself, 
were strolling down Pennsylvania Avenue. Directly opposite 
Hancock's famous thirst emporium, known for seventy years 
as "The Old Curiosity Shop," one of the party suggested that 
we all go over there and take a social nip ; but in his courtly 
way Ingalls declined. Then I inquired : "Did you never drink, 
Senator?" His answer was : "Oh, yes, sir; when first I went 
to Kansas Territory I drank a great deal of whisky ; it was the 
only recreation I had." 

The people of Kansas have of late further honored that 
fair State in perpetuating the memory of its foremost repre- 
sentative, by placing in the Hall of Fame at the Nation's capital 
a magnificent maible statue of John James Ingalls. 

WiLEiAM S. Morgan, Marion County, West \'irginia. In 
my boyhood days back in Marion County with no little pride 
I often listened to the talks of four men who were then friends 
and neighbors of our family, and who in turn represented our 
old district in the Congress of the United States. They were 
William S. Morgan, along in the decade commencing in 1830; 
Colonel Thomas S. Haymond, elected in 1840; Doctor Zedekiah 
Kidwell, from 1853 to 1857; and Benjamin F. Martin, after I 
left there, from 1876 to 188 1 — all Marion County men, strong, 
vigorous, and able. 

Mr. ^lorgan then lived near the village of Rivesville, 
where my father was for a short time a merchant, along about 
1850, and at his store this venerable-looking and wise man 
made his headquarters. He was even then white of hair, tall, 
and slender in person, of unusual natural dignity, and, what 
was then of still greater consequence to me, he loved to talk 
to children and had been a member of Congress ! We had 
heard of God and the President and senators, but to actually 
hear the words of a real, live ex-member of Congress was a 



142 Recollections 

glorious treat! Morgan's family ran back to early Colonial 
days, and that was a fact to be proiul of in that country and 
time. He was not primarily an educated man, but by close 
observation and study had become of exceptionally rare mental 
endowments and seemed never so happy as when imparting 
his rich stores of wisdom to the young. He lived beloved and 
esteemed by all until after the Civil War. Aside from his 
vast ])ovvers of statement, reason, and logic as a statesman, 
he became a national character in the scientific world as a 
painter of water-colors and in his favorite study of botany 
and natural history. 

Thomas S. Haymond is distinctly and pleasantly recalled 
as a loud, florid talker, but withal a careful and efficient pub- 
lic officer in both State and national affairs. He went South 
in our war, never could tolerate the new-fangled policies 
of the rising generation, and died at Richmond, \'irginia, in 
1869. 

Zedekiah Kidwell was one of the most popular men of 
his day and a political manager of national repute. For four 
years he demonstrated the fact that as speaker, writer, thinker, 
worker, he was surpassed by no member of the national Con- 
gress. Until his death in 1872, he was always powerful in 
clear, logical argument and no citizen of my old home county 
had either more or better fighting friends. 

IjEnjamin F. Martin was born on a farm near my 
father's in 1828, and in private life, as well as in Congress, 
his chief claim to loving distinction was his courtly, polished, 
suave way of performing every duty imposed upon him by 
either friend or foe. He couldn't help being a gentleman, for 
he was born that way ; and yet he was as strong as he was 
good. 

Mason Summers Peters, Argentine, Kansas. When first 
we met, this man was buying live stock through my country 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 143 

for a wealthy man named Mosier. He then Hved in CHnton 
County, Missouri, and this was at Gallatin, away back in the 
early spring of 1867. We were of the same age ; his cheeks 
were rosy, his face ruddy, and a small, silky boyish mous- 
tache ornamented his upper lip, while his hair was brown 
and abundant. He looked and acted like a gentleman, 
and I then suspected, and later knew, that the blood of 
my own kind of people coursed through his veins — some- 
times hot and fiery, but generally cool. He may not be as 
handsome now as he was then, but he knows a lot more ,*; 
for his hair is mostly gone, and, as the darkey said, the 
time he now saves in combing his head he loses in washing 
his face, while his whitish full whiskers evidence the steady 
march of over forty-two years. While he was busy in '67 his 
employer got on a protracted drunk and lost a thousand dollars 
or so in horse-racing and other kindred amusements. Mosier's 
good old father came to Gallatin, took in his son's condition 
and wisely called for an accounting. But young Mosier had 
lost the money, couldn't account or pay over, happened to 
charge their young employee with having embezzled the funds, 
and had him arrested. No one there believed the defendant 
guilty, and to my own knowledge two of the citizens of Gal- 
latin then stood by him — Major S. P. Cox and myself. The 
law required two sureties ; the Alajor was rich and I poor, but 
this gave him the two sureties, and the young man didn't go 
to jail. The facts all leaked out before the hearing and our 
friend was promptly discharged, but what became of his ac- 
cuser I never knew. Soon after this, in 1870, our friend was 
elected county clerk of Clinton, and the only complaint con- 
cerning his official action at Plattsburg was that, while a "bred 
in the bone" Democrat, he would insist on helping distressed 
Union soldiers as well as his own kind. His term ended, he 
came to Kansas City, engaged in the live stock commission 



144 Recollections 

business, and has since both made and lost fortunes. But one 
of the many things I have always honored and respected him 
for was. that when fortune changed and he became rich, while 
the good Major grew poor, Peters kept Major Cox employed 
at a good salary for years, out in Kansas and Colorado, buying 
cattle. In 1896 his people sent him as their representative to 
the U. S. Congress, and with conspicuous fidelity he there 
served and won the personal friendship and even affection of 
the peerless speaker Tom Reed. During his Congressional 
career I was much at the Nation's capital. Whether officers 
work or play down there, the people soon find out, and I have 
yet to find the city that sizes a man up so quickly or so ac- 
curately as does Washington. So it came about that, despite 
liis politics, by his rapid, tireless, ceaseless energy, long before 
his term closed no man in the Kansas delegation had accom- 
plished so much for his people, his State, and the Nation as 
my old friend. While all this pleased and gratified me, for 
I had watched his growth and strength, yet I was never sur- 
prised at it, for I knew the mettle in the man. 

Francis H. PiErpont, Fairmont, West Virginia, was born 
in the same year (1814) as my father; together they were 
enthusiastic young Whigs, but at the outbreak of the war in 
1861 both were pronounced Union men and from that time 
on until life closed, both affiliated with the Republican party. 
l,ate in life he spelled the name "Pierpont," but history has 
it written in the old way, "Pierpoint," and I now want to so 
write it down, but, out of deference to him, here spell the name 
the new way. From the days of my childhood I knew him. 
He became a lawyer, a politician, an effective and powerful 
public speaker, and a fearless, sagacious leader among the men 
and stirring times of his day. Through all his active and long 
life he retained the unaffected piety of his childhood, and 
before the war was for eighteen years the head and front of the 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 145- 

Sunday-school of his church in Fairmont, either as teacher 
or superintendent. 

On a fly-leaf of my copy of Colonel Theodore F. Lang's 
interesting book, "Loyal West Virginia," I wrote this little 
historical note years ago: 

"In the autumn of i860, Abraham Lincoln was elected 
President of the United States, and inaugurated at Washington 
on Alarch 4, 1861. Beginning with South Carolina, on Decem- 
ber 20, i860, many of the slave-holding States seceded from 
the Union. 

"The Virginia State Convention at Richmond convened 
February 13, 1861, and adopted an ordinance of secession on 
April 17, 1861, which was ratified by the voters of that State 
at an election held Alay 23, 1861. I well recall this election at 
Farmington, when and where I was present with my father, 
who then voted against that ordinance ; but the secessionists 
carried the election by a majority of 96.750 out of a total vote 
of 161,108 — the men west of the mountains largely voting 
against secession. 

"The government of the Confederate States of America 
had been established; its troops fired on Fort Sumter, in South 
Carolina, on April 12, 1861, and this act brought on the great 
War of 1 86 1 to 1865. 

"Union meetings had been already held at Clarksburg and 
other points, and on May 13, 1861, many Union delegates met,, 
on call, at Washington Hall, in Wheeling, and passed reso- 
lutions in favor of the Union cause. 

"On May 2^, 1861, the Union forces first came into Vir- 
ginia, and on June 3. 1861, under command of Colonel Ben- 
jamin F. Kelley, fought the first real battle of the Civil War 
at Philippi. 

"On June 11, 1861, the Union Convention again convened 
at Wheeling, and, on the twentieth of that month, elected 
Francis H. Pierpoint. of my county, as the loyal Governor of 
Virginia, restored. On July i, 1861. that Convention elected 
two United States senators, and these, with three delegates in 
Congress, took their seats at Washington at the session of 
Congress called by President Lincoln. July 4, 1861, their com- 
missions dating from May 23, 1861." 

That Congressional delegation was composed of Waitman 



143 Recollections 

T. Willey, of Morgantown, and John S. Carlisle, of Clarks- 
burg, U. S. senators; and Jacob B. Blair, of Parkersburg, 
Kellian V. Whaley, of Point Pleasant, and William Guy 
Brown, of Kingwood, as members of the lower House of 
Congress, and they so remained until the new State was 
formed. 

From Colonial days until West Virgiania was proclaimed 
a State in the Federal Union, the people who there lived west 
of the Blue Ridge had agitated the question and prayed for 
a separation from the Old Dominion. They claimed that under 
both Colonial and State governments all public improvements 
were made and State taxes expended east of the mountains, 
and that, witli the single exception of Joseph Johnson, of 
Bridgeport, in Harrison County (the uncle of Waldo P. John- 
son, once a U. S. senator from Missouri), no Governor of that 
State had ever been chosen from Western Virginia. So the 
Civil War was the occasion rather than the cause of the sep- 
aration. The people of the old commonwealth may never 
become reconciled to this change, and I recall now the power 
and bitterness in the voice and appearance of ex-Governor 
Henry A. Wise when, in a public speech at Alexandria, Vir- 
ginia, just after the close of the war, he referred to the change 
and there characterized West Virginia as "the bastard off- 
spring of a political rape" ! I was the only hearer of that 
speech who then lived in the new State, and shall never again 
feel so small as when the fighting old Governor uttered the 
sentence quoted. 

Although justly called "The Father of West Virginia," 
yet in fact Pierpont never was the Governor of that State. 
Arthur I. Boreman was the first Governor of West Virginia, 
and he was elected when the new State was formed in June, 
1863. 

With prophetic vision, Pierpont early comprehended the 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 147 

long and bitter struggle which followed 1861. On May 23, 
the day the voters of that State by their ballots decided that 
\'irginia should secede, without voting, Pierpont left his Fair- 
mont home and attended a conference of other loyalists, at 
Wheeling. Someone asked why he did not remain at home 
and vote, and to the query he made this memorable reply: 
"Loyal Virginians, the time for voting is past; the time for 
bullets is here." Pierpont and those who stood with him at 
once again called their delegate convention at Wheeling, under 
the banner "Loyal Virginia now or never," for June 11, and 
by a unanimous vote that convention on June 20, i86r, made 
him Governor of the restored government ot Virginia, for 
this reason : Many influential members there argued that \'ir- 
ginia then had a State government at Richmond ; that loyalists 
west of the mountains could not procure the consent of the 
legislature of that State to form another State government; 
that such consent was absolutely necessary and must be had; 
and that the Government at Washington could not recognize a 
State as proposed "because it was not after the mode pre- 
scribed by the Constitution of the United States." But stal- 
wart, courageous Frank Pierpont alone insisted that they were 
all wrong. He then gave them his famous plan of action, which 
in substance was : That only a part of Virginia and its legis- 
lature claimed to be out of the Federal Union; that the acts 
and doings of that faction were in plain violation of the Con- 
stitution and laws of both State and Nation; that the votes 
and acts of the people west of the mountains did not depend 
upon those living east of the mountains ; that Virginia, as a 
State, was all right as it stood, but that the loyal element must 
control Its government. His plan won ; the restored govern- 
ment of Virginia became a fixed fact; the Federal Govern- 
ment and the world recognized its power; it was duly lepre- 
sented in the halls of Congress, sent its Union soldiers to the 



148 Recollections 

front, and it is not strange to note the fact now that nearly 
two years afterward, in his opinion on the proposed admission 
of West Virginia as a separate State on December 31, 1862, 
President Lincoln in substance followed and expressed the 
same views upon the facts and on the legal questions involved 
as Pierpont had theretofore laid down. 

As the Governor of Virginia, Francis H. Pierpont faith- 
fully served the people of his native State from 1861 to 1868. 
First the seat of government was at Wheeling, until the form- 
ation of the new State in 1863; then at Alexandria, Virginia; 
and after the fall of Richmond, at the executive mansion 
in the old capital city. 

In his earnest, vigorous way he returned his thanks to 
the Convention of 1861 for the honor conferred by his election 
as Governor, and when a personal and political friend then 
told Pierpont that he was the first man in history to return 
thanks to those who had put a rope around his neck, the war 
Governor uttered a great truth in replying: "Success is never 
convicted of treason." 

When my own company was mustered into the United 
States service on Wheeling Island in 1861, Governor Pierpont 
]jaid us two signal honors in personally calling upon the ''boys" 
from his old home county, most of whom had known him from 
their earliest recollection and sometimes attended his Sunday- 
school, and in making to us a speech of unusual power and 
ability. To this hour I recall that earnest, patriotic, yet 
fatherly speech, and will never forget how his voice rang out 
like a bugle as he closed with the old Cromwellian injunction, 
"Trust in God and keep your powder dry." 

Because of the turbulent times in which it became a State, 
West Virgmia is often and properly designated as "The Child 
of the Storm," and for the result no one is entitled to higher 
credit than the forceful, determined, patriotic Frank Pierpont. 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 149 

He has the credit too for suggesting the motto for the new 
State, "Montaiii semper liberi" — "Alountaineers are always 
free." 

At the reunion of Maulsby's Battery, held on the site of 
Prickett's old fort, at the town of Catawba, on the Monon- 
gahela River, in Alarion County, in September, 1888, the good 
old war Governor and I spoke from the same platform. The 
old-time fire and energy shone from his patriarchal face and 
his voice had lost none of its charm, as he again told that vast 
audience the story of the trials and triumphs of the people west 
of the mountains in the days of the war. 

The last fighting in the war in our old county is known in 
history as "the Jones laid." The Confederate General William 
E. Jones, in command of a large force of cavalry, after a stiff 
fight, entered and took possession of Fairmont on April 29, 
1863. As Pierpont was then war Governor of X'irginia and 
an ardent and influential supporter of the Lincoln adminis- 
tration at Washington, the Confederates sought his home there, 
carried his rare and valuable library out into the public street 
and then burned every volume he had. 

When Governor Pierpont died not long ago, I prepared a 
sketch of his life and public services, which then appeared 
in the Kansas City Journal and later in his home paper, the 
Fairmont West Virginian. 

In loving gratitude to the memory of Governor Pierpont, 
the State of West Virginia lately caused a beautitul marble 
statue of their war Governor to be set up in Statuary Hall 
in the Nation's capital, where I saw it only the other day, after 
this imperfect sketch was in type. This statue is to be unveiled 
and formally presented by the State to the Nation early in 
next year — 1910. 

Thomas Brackett Reed, Maine There are only a few 
peculiarities in the public and private lite of me big, brainy 



150 Recollections 

Speaker of the lower House of Congress, beloved by all who 
knew him well, and affectionately referred to as "Tom Reed," 
not in the prints or known to the people. 

It has long been a social crime to overstimulate at Wash- 
ington in the daytime, and many high official positions have 
been there forever lost by a violation of this rule. So when 
on public duty there during the day, Tom lived as simply as 
priest or nun, ate like a vegetarian and was as temperate as a 
Kansas prohibitionist ; but after dark, upon proper occasion, 
he drank straight brandy by the tumblerful, much like Justice 
Miller, of tlie Supreme Court. Both were big, mentally and 
physically, and could stand such indulgence. The greatest, 
best, and safest of all the "Reed Rules," however, was: "Never 
take a drink till after dark." 

He and I were alike fond of General Logan; those who 
were close to "Black Jack" always admired him, and one of 
his highest attributes was his love for and loyalty to his friends. 
I once toUl Reed an amusing incident in Logan's personal 
experience out at Toj^eka, Kansas, as the story thereof was re- 
lated to me by our other mutual friend, George R. Peck. After 
a hearty laugh over the story, in his deep, rich voice, Reed 
said: "I like John A. Logan, because he is so damned human." 
Beneath his apparent frivolity, however, and always the servant 
of his powerful will, ran the deep strong stream of Reed's 
profound wisdom and high statesmanship. I have heard 
Presidents, senators, and other dignitaries talk to and advise 
with him upon public questions, and it was always apparent 
that each realized he was talking with his intellectual superior. 

While chairman of the judiciary committee of the House, 
Jenkins of Michigan once said: "Personally Tom is so big 
that he towers over all ; but I am not for him for our Execu- 
tive, because I know he would be President and Cabinet and 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have AIet 151 

both Houses of Congress, and I am not so damn sure he 
wouldn't also try to be the Supreme Court." 

Before Reed became Speaker, and while he was a member 
of Congress, I spent some days at his home in Portland, where 
everybody spoke in highest praise of Tom Reed as lawyer, 
man, and statesman, and from Maine came on to Washington. 
In our long talk I then referred to the esteem in which he 
was held at home, and asked him this (to me) ever-present 
question: "How can you get your consent to come down here 
terni after term simply to be one member of this damned bear 
garden, when you could remain at home, be your own master, 
and in your chosen profession make five times more money 
than your salary?" His answer gave me the key to his public 
career in these words : ''I '11 tell you, Mc Dougal : I come down 
here term after term mainly because there are always a lot 
of damned fellows in my district who say I shall not come." 
Many others must make the like sacrifice for the same reason ; 
but the love of neither fight nor people ever carried me so 
far. Indeed, this subject now recalls an incident which oc- 
curred in my office here about twenty years ago: A delegation 
headed by Colonel Thomas B. Bullene waited upon me, with 
pledges of ample campaign funds and assurances of success, 
and tendered me the nomination for Congress. At the close of 
their several talks, I said : "When a boy I spent four years 
in an earnest, patriotic, and somewhat dangerous efi'ort to save 
this country; through the efiforts of myself and nearly three 
million others who were engaged in the same business, this 
country was then saved ; now the duty devolves upon you. as 
representing the others, to keep it saveil for humanity, and if 
you don't do it, the country may go to hell semiannually so far 
as I am concerned, for I am through, and therefore decline." 
So the only question in life since the war has been how not 
to do it ; how to be out and keep out of the limelight. 



152 Recollections 

But, under our system of government, someone must 
shoulder and carry the burden, and as long as such men as 
Reed, of Maine, consent to do the work, no matter from what 
motive, this country may congratulate itself, for it is and will 
be in the kee]Mng of safe, sane, sensible patriots. 

Jerry Simpson, Kansas. This native of Nova Scotia had 
all the experiences and passed through all the stages of human 
life. About my own age, he never had or followed any rule 
or regulation in thought, work, study, speaking, or anything 
else; but just the same he arrived. The world knew it, and 
for years he led the forces of a once powerful political party 
in the West— the Populists. To arouse the followers of his 
people to the highest pitch, and confuse and scatter his op- 
ponents, Jerry assumed a crudity to which he was by nature 
a stranger; yet, by the policy pursued during his Congressional 
career of many terms, he drew to himself the attention of 
world-wide thinkers and the warm affection of those who 
came in personal contact with him. Many of those who never 
saw or knew the man spoke of him in derision as "Sockless 
Socrates" or as "the sockless statesman of Medicine Lodge," 
and of all Americans he was least understood. From the Na- 
tion's capital at Washington to the plains of New Mexico, 
however, we ate, drank, walked, and talked together many and 
many a time, and now that he is gone, it may be said of him 
that, as I knew him, he was in all places and under all circum- 
stances a quietly but well groomed, honorable, consistent, con- 
siderate gentleman. 

Jerry and Mason S. Peters were in the lower House of 
Congress together, became inseparable companions, and to- 
gether often strolled into my law office for an hour's talk. 
The world does not know that this soldier, sailor, philosopher, 
citizen, and statesman was one of the bright, noble, brave, 
brainy men of his time ; and was as strong, reliable, and loyal 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 153 

as the North Star, yet this and more is true. Thomas orackett 
Reed, while he was Speaker and Jerry a member of the U. S. 
Congress, once said of him to me: "There is the one man 
in this House whose tongue I fear." At home as he always 
was in wit, repartee, humor, retort, and logic, yet no one ever 
knew him in the heat of debate to wound or cause sorrow to 
a single fellow-man. 

Jerry was not college bred, not yet would the graduate 
call him a scholar. Few of the university graduates of Europe 
or America, however, knew as much as he. Blessed with a 
rarely retentive memory, he read much, thought more, and 
never forgot anything. So the history, literature, religion, 
poetry, and music of the wide world became his ; and among 
the many, no one has yet been known to me who could and 
did discuss all these with either more accurate information 
or in a more interesting, entertaining, or instructive manner. 
Then, too, he was a living, breathing, walking, and talking 
encyclopedia of the marvelously curious in history and fiction, 
and in any field of learning, of ancient or modern times, seemed 
at home along paths that were strange, new and unknown to 
the average citizen. All these, with his ready, hearty, whole- 
some ways, endeared the man to all who knew him closely ; 
and without a single exception, all these felt a deep personal 
loss when death closed his career in the autumn of 1905. 

Alexander H. Stephens, Georgia. After the war and 
while he represented his district in Congress at Washington, 
I often met and enjoyed talking with the distinguished Vice- 
President of the defunct Confederacy. In more ways than 
one he was to me the most gifted man and the readiest writer 
in all the South, wise, just, generous. His public speeches, 
books, and doings are known of all ; but the impressions he 
made upon me were : that his temper was always even, sweet, 
and gentle ; his voice as low and soft and musical as a woman's. 



154 Recollkctions 

His abundant iron-gray hair was covered by a semi-military 
hat of soft texture, and his hands were like bird claws, yet al- 
ways open ; but when he came down the aisle to speak, whicli 
was not often, his fellow-members always crowded about his 
wheel-chair to catch his every word. Brains and learning and 
wisdom and patriotism were his ; and the Constitution, laws, 
and ihii^ of iiis restored country seemed the one grand passion 
of his closing years. 

William Joel Stone, Missouri. As a country lawyer, 
member of the lower House of Congress, Governor of JMis- 
souri, United States senator, public speaker, politician, states- 
man, and leader of men, I have known and studied this gifted 
native of Kentucky for many years, without being able to fix 
his exact status in the future history of our country. 

As a looker-on. I attended the sessions of the great Dem- 
ocratic Xational Convention at Chicago in 1896. There I 
first observed the power and influence of this man over both 
the men and measures of his party. Bryan's "crown of gold" 
speech was great ; but Senator Stone. Governor Altgeld, and 
Senator Tillman were far and away the three leaders who 
then held that great body of men and swayed them as one 
would a tiny wand. Stone has ever since exercised that power, 
when and as he wished in the councils of his party. 

In securing the Democratic National Convention of 1900 
at Kansas City, a large body of Western Democrats appeared 
before their National Committee at Washington, and I was 
selected to go along with and assist them, because of my 
familiarity with national affairs. Senator Stone was the chair- 
man of our delegation and no point ever escaped him. One 
evening, at his direction, Moses C. Wetmore, Seth Cobb, and 
myself were sent through the rain in a carriage from the 
Raleigh to the Gordon Hotel to secure the vote of one man — 



A Few Otiikr Statesmen I Have Met 155 

and got it. But, on account of the long drive and the rain. 
Colonel Wetmore was taken violently ill, and Stone stayed up 
with and waited on him all night long. No heartless man 
would do a thing like that. To the work, sagacity, and man- 
agement of Stone, more than all else, is due the credit of 
securing that Convention. 

After the National Convention was over, the bills all paid, 
and everybody happy, the management gave a Convention ban- 
quet up at the Coates House and Stone was our guest of honor. 
All might have gone smoothly, but for some unknown reason 
I was called upon by the toastmaster to respond to some senti- 
ment — which I didn't do. But in lieu thereof I talked of our 
trip down to Washmgton, the benefits derived by the city, etc., 
and then puri)osely referred to myself as the only Republican 
who went with the delegation. As anticipated, hands went up 
and two other men announced that they, too, had worked for 
the cit> as Republicans. 'I'his was answered by saying tiiat I 
had not known, nor even suspected, tiiat they were members 
of my party, and that from their actions all along the line 
I had the right to and did assume that the^e two gentlemen 
were Democrats! Then, as nearly as now recalled, I said: 
"I know little and care less what otiieis may think about your 
party, Mr. Toastmaster; but my own judgment has been and 
is that about the organization ot the great Democratic party 
there is somewhere concealed that immoital spark wliich, for 
want of a better name, man calls the divine, for the reason 
that in my day that party has violated every law of God and 
man and committed every crime known to the calendar and 
still lives! And now, Mr. Toaslmastei, if I were a Demo- 
crat — which, thank God! I am not — from this night forward 
I should work without ceasing with two Democratrc objects 
in view: first, to keep in tlie United State Senate, so long 
as he may live and that party remains m the ascendancy m 



156 Recollections 

Missouri, that grand, old, honest, sturdy Confederate, Francis 
'M. Cockrell; and second, until that party should nominate for 
the Presidency of the United States that other stalwart Mis- 
souri Democrat who is tonight our guest of honor, William 
Joel Stone." 

The wliirligig of politics has made many revolutions since 
that night. My good friend Cockrell has been succeeded in 
the U. S. Senate by another good friend in the person of 
Major William Warner, of this city, and the ex-Senator is now 
serving his country, by tlie grace of a Republican President, 
as a member of the National Inter-State Commerce Com- 
mission, while Stone is again a U. S. senator and has not yet 
been nominated by his party for President. Maybe he never 
will be ; but to me he remains a great power in his party and is 
one of the wonders of his country. He does everything earn- 
estly and faithfully, plays both politics and poker to win, and 
up to date has won at both. What will the harvest be ? Dios 
sabe. 

WiLUAM Warner, Kansas City, Missouri. This soldier, 
lawyer, orator, patriot, statesman, has been a citizen of Kansas 
City since 1865 ; is known, respected, and beloved at home 
and abroad ; has ftlled many other public offices, from mayor 
of this city to Commander-in-chief of the G. A. R., and was 
elected as the Republican Alissouri senator in the Congress of 
the United States in 1905. 

He is a native of Wisconsin, and in the Civil War, amid 
the rattle of musketry and the roar of cannon, won for himself 
the proud title of major. Whatever he has been or may be 
to all others, yet he will always be affectionately called "Major 
Warner" by Kansas Cityans. 

Tn the court-room and on his feet, before judge, jury, or 
public audience, few Americans are so tactful, ready, good- 



A Few Other Statesmen I Have Met 157 

natured. or powerful, for in all these situations he is at home 
and at his best. 

We first met as delegates in the State Republican Con- 
vention at Jefferson City in 1870, and from that day to this 
have been much together. The interesting and pleasant inci- 
dents in his busy life during the past forty years would fill 
a volume, but the curious must be referred to his public record, 
with the reminder that there is a world of difference between 
a record and a prospectus. Soon after Major Warner was 
made a U. S. senator. I delivered the address in presenting his 
portrait, painted by my other old friend, John C. Merine, to the 
Public Library of Kansas City, and the Senator's response was 
one of the most touching and beautiful of his life. 

Waitman T. WillEy, Morgantown, West Virginia. 
AVhen this man was in the zenith of his fame as a U. S. 
senator of the restored government of Virginia, and later 
of the new State, my learned and deeply religious Grandfather 
Boggess more than once told me the story of the birth, youth, 
and manhood of "Wait" Willey. While the Senator w^as still 
a baby, death claimed his mother, and after the body was 
lowered, a venerable preacher, who had conducted the funeral 
services, standing at the head of her grave, took the baby boy 
in his arms and, with tears streaming down his face, fervently 
said: "May God Almighty protect and ever bless this infant." 
And in reciting the incident Grandfather, who was present 
and heard the preacher, always added: "If an earnest prayer 
was ever answered and granted, then that prayer was, for 
from his birtli to this day God has surely both blessed and 
protected our grand and great representative in the United 
States Senate." The fact that I had known him from boy- 
hood led me to watcli with unusual care the personal and 
political movements of this man as a senator, and especially 



158 REtOLLECTlONS 

while T was in Washington just after the Civil War. He wa^ 
tall, spare, smoolh-shaven, with a rapid, springy step, and no 
senator of his day was more watchful or vigilant on com- 
mittees or more effective in his many public speeches while 
devoting his attention to all public affairs, and more especially 
to every cjuestion which might relate to the now State of West 
Virginia 

When he and my grandfather were younger, as a boy I 
often listened to their grave and thoughtful discussions, but 
my particular delight was to hear them talk upon the early 
settlement, settlers, old-timers, and development of their im- 
mediate country. 11 there was a person, either high or low, 
living within or on the waters of the Monongahela that both 
did not know all about, I never knew it. 

In the times of the war the Senator's elder brother, Wil- 
liam J. Willey, went Southward, and at Lee's surrender, in 
186.S, was in command of a Virginia regiment in the Confed- 
erate Army. Colonel Willey was a military man even before 
the war. and had his store and .many houses at Farmington, 
which was then my father's post-office, and there I knew all the 
family rather closely for my years. When the Union forces 
under General McClellan occupied Farmington late in May, 
1861, they raised the old Stars and Stripes over Colonel Wil- 
ley 's home, for it was the best and biggest in town. The owner 
was an officer in the Confederate Army, and there that flag 
floated, to the delight ot Unionists, for months. The father of 
the Colonel and the Senator was an old-time, rich, aristocratic 
Virginia planter, made his home at the house of his eldest boy, 
and was intensely Southern. Like the ancient King of Israel, 
Uncle Billy Willey "was old and stricken in years," and 
towards the autumn of 1861 first realized that his days were 
numbered. So he wired the Senator at Washington to come 
at once to Farmington, and, like the good and dutiful son he 



A Few Other Statesmen 1 Have Met 159 

was, Waitman took the fiist train and soon stood in the pres- 
ence of his dying iatlier. In a faihng voice, but with the 
fires of the Southland still glowing in his eyes, the old man said : 
"Wait, you know 1 own two plantations; that I have made 
my last will, in which 1 devised to your elder brother William 
my plantation up on the hill here near Farmington, in Ma- 
rion County, and to yourself my })laniation down near you 
m Monongahela County; you know, loo, that I am and have 
always been a Southern man ; 1 hope the Lincoln government 
at Washington will go down in defeat, and that the Con- 
federacy will win and be established as our Government; I 
love the Stars and Bars and hate the Stars and Stripes; the old 
flag floats over this house ; the Yankee soldiers will not lower 
and remove it as I want them to; now, Wait, you are in public 
life at the so-called capital down at Washington, and have the 
power to have that hated flag hauled dow n any day ; Wait, you 
must heie and now make up your mind, as I have mine, either 
you have this flag taken down now, or I '11 take down that 
Monongahela i)lantatioii " The old man died happy; his will 
was not changed. 

One moonlight night last summer I was sitting on the 
broad piazza of the Saratoga Hotel over at Excelsior Springs, 
only thirty-three miles from here, and engaged in a pleasant 
talk with a gentleman who was also a guest. He was tall, 
slender, erect, with good tectli, abundant hair and mustache, 
which were always caiefuUy brushed, and a most interesting 
conversationalist. Someway 1 happened to mention a con- 
tractor on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, when I was a 
boy, who in buyir.g timber for the road in my country had an 
appliance that to mt seemed a miraculous sort of device, but by 
which he could accurately (letermmc the height of a tree as 
well as the amount of lumber it would produce, and that this 



IGO RliCOLLliCTlONS 

gentleman's name was Henry L. Hunt. He drew me on until 
1 liad told him all about my own people, my country, the neigli- 
bors and friends of my childhood, the marriage in 1851 of tins 
contractor with Aliss Sarah, the second daughter of Colonel 
Willey, etc., etc. ; and then greatly surprised me by saying . 
"This is a rare and unusual occurrence, but the truth is that 
1 am the same Henry L, Hunt of whom you have spoken; 
after that road was completed, 1 was was for a time its super- 
visor, went from Virginia to Kansas Territory in the fall of 
1854, and am now over eighty-six years of age." In our daily 
walks for the next few days. Hunt gave me many of his per- 
sonal experiences since last we met, hfty-six years before, and 
from his travels and rich store of information on nearly every 
conceivable subject kept me deeply interested all the time, if 
there was was a person or thing about old Marion County 
not mentioned and discussed, the omission was clearly trace- 
able to want of time. In his wanderings over the world he 
often met his wife's uncle while Senator Willey was at Wash- 
ington in the '60s, and in his declining days watched over old 
Confederate Colonel Willey; from each of these two brother* 
he had the story of the talk at Farmington when "Uncle Billy" 
Willey lay dying; and, being a New Yorker by birth, Hunt 
was a great favorite of the distinguished senator from Vir- 
ginia, and later from West Virginia. 



Soldier Friends 16i 

VII. 
SOLDIER FRIENDS. 

William T. Sherman, The Army. Through his works, 
campaigns, and books, tlie worki knows the General's record 
from tide-water to timber-line and neither words nor time will 
here be devoted to any of these. But for years after the war 
we were occasionally thrown together at Washington and else- 
where, and to his shining example I owe my present capacity 
to attend and "make a hand" at several banquets or dinners 
in a given evening and then retire in good order; for he always 
made it a point to eat a little and drink a little everywhere 
and then go to bed early and sober — comparatively. 

After his retirement from the head of the Army, and in 
1884, we were delegates from Missouri to the National En- 
campment ot the G. A. R., at Minneapolis in Minnesota. 
Neither knew nor cared for the many details of the order, and 
the result was that the "boys" furnished a carriage and de- 
tailed me to look after General Sherman. So for about ten 
days, in that city, on Lake Minnetonka and at St. Paul, the 
General, Miss Rachel Sherman, Mrs. McDougal, and myself, 
were together most of the time. 

One day at the encampment, pending a row between 
General Charles Grosvenor, of Ohio, and the Dakota dele- 
gation, over some resolution of theirs, the General turned to 
me and said: "Mack, this thing has grown monotonous, let 
us go down to camp and call upon our Missouri boys." The 
suggestion came as a command, and together we drove to 
camp, only to find that our Missouri forces were marching out. 
But in a twinkling the news spread throughout the grounds, 
"General Sherman is here," and in less time than it takes to 



162 Recollections 

write it, the vast amphitheater was filled with people, all 
clamorous for a speech from the old hero. In charge of the 
post commandant, we chmbed the spiral stairway of the grand 
stand and the General was presented, Pantmg like a lizard, 
he could only say: "Your stairway has cut my wind; I can't 
talk now; my friend McDougal will entertain you till I get my 
breath." So the Lincoln volunteer was "drafted" on the spot 
and had to say something. Then Sherman spoke to them, as 
only he could, for twenty or thirty minutes, and closed in a 
wild shout that drowned the roar of the Falls of St. Anthony. 
As we started to leave the stand, the music struck up "March- 
ing through Georgia." In full uniform, I had just gotten to 
the center of the stand when the band reached the chorus, and 
on the inspiration of the moment I swung my military cap and 
motioned that audience of over fifty thousand men and women 
to rise and join mc m that wondrous chorus. I led the solo; 
the people in front, all standing, triumphant and glorious, 
joined in the chorus, and, to complete the dramatic situation. 
General Sherman stepped to my side and joined in like a boy, 
just as if that song were not in his honor! 

That evening General Washburn was to give a reception 
to Sherman at his palatial home and the General and I drove 
from camp direct to his home. Once there, the host tried to 
put Sherman at once at the head of the receiving line; but 
the veteran said: "No, no; Mack and I have just driven up 
from camp ; our boots are still muddy and I must brush up 
a little before meeting your people." Adjoining rooms were 
assigned us up stairs, and I see the General now as he came 
into my room, drying his face and hands, and again hear him 
inquire: "Say, McDougal, do you know what kind of a liver 
our friend Washburn is?" I said no, but judging from that 
mansion, he ought to live well, and inquired ,vhy he wanted to 



Soldier Friknds 163 

know. He answered: "Well, the truth is, that I am as dry 
as a fish and want a little nip mighty bad." .As soon as we 
got down stairs, Washburn placed the General at the head of 
the receiving line, along with General John A. Logan. Lucius 
W. Fairchild, and many others, while I fell in behind the 
line and told the story of Sherman's soldier thirst to General 
Negley, of Pennsylvania, who was among W^ashburn's many 
guests and knew just how the house was supplied. In his 
quaint German way, Negley simply said: "Watch me; I '11 fix 
him." Xoting Sherman's buoyancy, our hostess soon said to 
Negley and myself: "Plow happy General Sherman is in again 
greeting his old comrades in arms and the people of our city." 
"On the contrary, madam, the General is as mad as hell right 
now ; he is dry and wants a good drink and wants it bad and 
quick," replied Negley. Turning to me, with an unforgotten 
emphasis, Airs. W'ashburn said: "Mr. McDougal, please get 
the General out of that line as soon as practicable; take him 
up to your room, and on the dresser there will be found an 
abundant supply of something which I have no doubt he needs 
and you zvant." The rest was easy. The General's only com- 
ment, as he smacked his lips, was: "Lord, but that's good 
whisky !" 

General Sherman's confidence and faith in Grant and his 
admiration for the military and civil genius of the man were 
always at the forefront and he loved to think and talk of Grant. 
Next came Philip H. Sheridan, who was then at the head of 
the Army. Personally I have always thought that in their 
order Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan were the three really 
great leaders and strategists of our war, for the Union. Of 
the three civilians who became major-generals in the Civil 
War, Sherman seemed to accord the highest military honors to 
John A. Logan, Francis P. Blair, and D. M. Crocker, of Iowa. 
The latter died early ; but once with great glee Sherman told me 



164 Recollkctions 

this amusing story concerning Crocker's personal experience 
while in command of our forces at Memphis, Tennessee: He 
was there rigidly enforcing orders against all movements of 
cotton, when a Hebraic firm engaged in that business sought to 
reach him and influence a change. He thereupon sent this 
characteristic telegraphic message to the Secretary of War 
at Washington: "Please relieve me of this command at once; 
I am ofifered two hundred thousand dollars in gold to raise 
the blockade on cotton, and that is damned near my price. 

Crocker." 

General Sherman was a military man above all else and 
on one occasion his talk turned on the battle of New Orleans. 
The treaty of peace between Great Britain and this Govern- 
ment was signed at Ghent on December 24, 1814, and in ignor- 
ance of this, or it may be awaiting of^cial notification, General 
Jackson fought this battle on January 8, 181 5. We had botn 
been over the ground and knew from reading history and per- 
sonal knowledge these historic facts : That prior to the bat- 
tle, the pirate Lafitte, with from three to five hundred men in 
his command, was located at Barrataria, near the mouth of the 
Mississippi, and had refused the offices and $30,000 in gold 
tendered him by the British, but finally agreed with Jackson 
that he and his men should participate in that battle upon the 
express agreement that Laiitte and his men should be fully 
pardoned for all their offences against the law, and the Negro 
slaves with him freed ; that in Lafitte's command were a num- 
ber of Negro slaves, then lawfully owned by persons living 
along the Gulf coast; that in this battle Lafitte and his men 
held the river front and there rendered valuable services to 
the American cause; that from the date of that victory there 
had always lived, south of Canal Street, at New Orleans, a 
colony of free blacks, who were still known as "the Lafitte 
niggers," all spoke the French, and were regarded as "aris- 



vSoLDiEu Frii:nds 165 

tocracy" among the Negroes of the South. But the two facts 
neither of us knew were: How or when or by whom these 
pirates were pardoned and these slaves were freed. After 
Sherman's death in 1891, I learned that at the earnest request 
of General Jackson, coupled with the unanimous recommend- 
ation of the Louisiana Legislature, these pirates were fully 
pardoned by President IMadison by his proclamation of Feb- 
ruary 6, 1815 ; while in his royal way Jackson by proclamation 
then assumed the right to free "the Lafitte niggers." He had 
previously there suspended the writ of habeas corpus and pro- 
claimed and enforced military law as the Commander-in-chief 
of the New Orleans District, and wdiether he had lawful or 
constitutional warrant for his acts was immaterial to him; 
he had and exercised the power, and that always ended the 
question with Jackson. And in passing it may be noted that 
"by virtue of the power in me [him] vested as Commander- 
in-chief of the Army and Navy," Lincoln later did the same 
thing in and by the Emancipation Proclamation, effective Jan- 
uary I, 1863. 

At the San Francisco National Encampment of the G. A. 
R. in 1886, General Sherman, as the- guest of honor, rode in 
an open carriage at the head of the staff in the great parade. 
Among the many aides-de-camp on horseback were General 
John A. Logan and myself, and we were in the saddle for 
over eight hours. Finally the Commanded-in-chief gave the 
order, "Head of column to the right," and the procession filed 
out into Market Street, and with the staff, together with 
Sherman, we were lined up on the sidewalk there to review 
the "boys." How many were in line I don't recollect now, but 
we had sixty-three bands and drum-corps and the procession 
seemed endless. Knowing that the General had a holy hate of 
the air which commemorated his great march to the sea, unless 
it bubbled up in a natural and easy sort of way, Logan and I, 



166 Rkcoli.kctions 

in a spirit of sheer cussedness, selected an alert-looking young 
fellow who didn't know Sherman from a goat, sent him down 
around the corner, and gravely instructed him to present to 
every band-master as the bands came along the compliments 
of General Sherman and say that the General was on the re- 
viewing-stand just up on Market Street, loved the old war- 
song, and would esteem it a personal compliment if this par- 
ticular band as it swung around that corner would strike up 
"Marching through Georgia." No scheme ever worked better. 
As they rounded tliat corner every one of the sixty-three 
bands, in a whole - souled, hearty way, played "Marching 
through Georgia" from there on past our stand and far up 
the street. The dear old unsuspecting General at first thought 
it just happened so; but by the time a dozen or so of them 
had passed, all working overtime on his pet aversion, he began 
to suspect some design and was furious. Many of the "boys" 
recognized the grim chief and broke ranks to go up and shake 
his hand; but with eyes flashing fire, arms folded across his 
breast, head uncovered, the General stood in his carriage, in 
vain urged them to go back into ranks and remember that they 
were still soldiers, and sternly refused to shake the hand of 
anyone. The air was blue about that carriage for a time, and 
then there was silence — the General's choice vocabulary and 
fancy cuss-words were not equal to the occasion ! Nearly dying 
to scream with laughter, Logan and I tried to look virtuous, 
guileless, and dignified, and succeeded so well that the Gen- 
eral never suspected either. Well toward the tail end of the 
parade a respectable-looking veteran persisted in his earnest 
efiforts to shake the General's hand. No amount of either per- 
suasion or profanity availed, and with arms still tightly folded, 
the General at last said: "I suppose you are another oi the 
damned boys that served in my command?" The veteran 
answered: "Unfortunately, General, I served in the Eastern 



Soldier Friends 167 

Army, and never clapped eyts on you until right now." Anger, 
disgust, and the music were all forgotten, the General's face 
beamed with pleasure, and his good right hand extended as he 
said: "Shaice, my good man, shake; you are the first old soldier 
I 've struck since coming to the Pacific Coast that didn't say he 
marched to the sea with me." 

General Sherman had opinions and theories of his own 
upon every public question, and these he stated and maintained 
with unusual clearness, strength, and ability. Mo one could 
consider his unfortunate controversy with Secretary of War 
Edwin AI. Stanton without reaching the conclusion that the 
General was right. Then, I recall now the vigor he threw into 
his theory at the war's close that the American slaves should 
first be educated at the expense of that Government which 
had held them and their ancestors in bondage from earliest 
times, and then, and not before, we should grant them the 
right to vote; nor how he finally persuaded his distinguished 
brother, John Sherman, of Ohio, to then see that great ques- 
tion his way. In addition to this, he then advocated the im- 
mediate recognition of every seceded State, and such other 
acts of conciliation as would have brought the young men of 
the South into the Republican party. That Henry W^ilson, 
Benjamin Wade, and others of their way of thinking mapped 
out and the party leaders shaped up a dififerent policy was no 
fault of William T. Sherman. 

The last long talk I had w^ith the General was an after- 
noon spent with him at his Garrison Avenue home in St. Louis 
not long before he left that city. No one that I have known 
w^as his equal in interesting reminiscences of a long and event- 
ful life; and few excelled him in accurate knowledge of the 
current history, literature, and philisophy of his time. Indeed, 
he always reminded me of great Emerson's graphic characteri- 



168 Recollections 

nation of greater Shakespeare, in that he "was a full man who 
loved to talk." 

Joseph B. Coghlan, The Navy. This hero of the deep 
was born just the day before I was, retired from the Navy as 
a rear admiral on account of the age limit, and suddenly died 
in New "\'ork, on December 5, 1908. In his boyhood he en- 
tered the service of his country on the water, and I on land ; 
he stuck to his text and came out with high honors ; I switched 
to the law ; but in all the years we were friends and I don't 
recall tlie day when I was not both fond and proud of Joe 
Coghlan. 

A cajitain in the U. S. Navy then, and in command of 
the good sliip "Raleigh" under Admiral George Dewey, Coghlan 
participated in the battle and capture of the city of Manila, 
P. I., in 1898. He told me that for eight days prior to this 
naval engagement Dewey called to his flagship every naval 
officer in his squadron and together these officers studied the 
official maps, charts, and plans of Manila Bay and daily con- 
ferred as to the best mode of attacking the Spanish position; 
all this was by tliem finally agreed upon and the plan of attack 
was upon the joint judgment of all these officers ; but the lionor 
of the first shot there fired must rest upon the direct command 
of Ca])lain Coghlan, of the "Raleigh." 

Not long after the Manila affair, Captain and Mrs. Cogh- 
lan were our guests, as they often were, at our home here 
in Kansas City. In driving them out to the house, I ofifered 
to give them any kind of a time they desired; if they craved 
newspaper notoriety, I proposed to have the Captain inter- 
viewed by every paper in town ; if society, then the house and 
grounds should be filled with people ; but if a quiet, homelike 
time were desired, then they might roll upon the green grass 
at will. Both said : "For Heaven's sake, let us have a quiet, 
restful visit," and they had it. 



Soldier Friends '169 

Before coming westward and at a private dinner in his 
honor in New York, Captain Coghlan, in response to the many 
felicitous talks, had repeated his famous "Hoch ! der Kaiser!" 
and while its effect was to play the wild with him later, yet 
I^Irs. Coghlan was proud of his elocution, as well she mighi 
have been, and urged him, as we all did. to repeat that recita- 
tion at breakfast and then at luncheon ; but Joe steadily refused 
to do so. The Captain explained to me that in his New York 
response he fully intended to give his hearers "Dot Dewey 
man will git you if you don't look oudt," but when he came 
to that part of his speech he couldn't recall a word of it. After 
pawing the air for a time in his vain efforts to recall "Dot 
Dewey man," his mind accidentally stumbled on the other and 
he repeated it instead of the poem intended. But I knew my 
man and proceeded in a most deliberate way to get him in the 
])roper frame of mind for the repetition of this poem. Then 
I quietly iilled the parlors with sympathizing neighbors and 
at the right moment called on Captain Joe for his speech and 
"Hoch! der Kaiser!" No one there will ever again listen to 
a more graphic or dramatic effort. Here it is : 

Hoch ! der Kaiser! 

Der Kaiser auf der Vaterland 
Und Gott on high all dings command — 
Ve two! Ach ! Don'd you understand? 
Meinself — und Gott ! 

He reigns in Heafen, und always shall ; 
Und mein own empire don'd vay small. 
Ein noble bair, I dinks, you call 
Meinself — und Gott ! 

Vile some men sing der power divine 
Mine soldiers sing "Die Wacht am Rhein," 
Und drink der health in Rheinisch wine 
Of me — und Gott ! 



170 Recollections 

Dere 's France, she swaggers all aroundt, 
She 's aiisgesi)ielt — dot 's oudt. 
To much, mcthinks, she don't amoundt; 
Myself— iind Gott ! 

She vill not dare to fight again, 
But if she should. I '11 show her blain 
Dot Elsass und (in French) Lorraine 
Are mine — by Gott ! 

Dere 's Grandma dinks she 's nicht small beer, 
Midt Boers und such she 'd interfere ; 
She '11 learn none owns dis hemisphere 
But me — und Gott ! 

She dinks, good frau, some ships she 's got, 
Und soldiers midt der scarlet goat. 
Ach ! We could knock dem — pouf ! like dot, 
Myself— midt Gott! 

In dimes of peace brebare for wars. 
I bear der spear und helm of Mars, 
Und care not for den tousand czars. 
Myself— undt Gott! 

In fact, I humor efry vhim, 
With aspect dark und visage prim ; 
Gott pulls mit me und I mit Him, 
Myself — und Gott ! 

The recitation of these lines got his Government and fin- 
ally Captain Coghlan into serious trouble with Germany, and 
to appease the wrath of offended dignity the Department 
"Dreyfussed" Coghlan to the Puget Sound Naval Station, not 
far from Bremerton, Washington. In a number of long let- 
ters I received from him while there he never wrote a word 
of complaint, but between the lines those who knew the man 
as I did could detect cuss-words as long as your finger in every 
sentence employed. 

While the Captain and Mrs. Coghlan were visiting us that 



Soldier Friends 171 

summer day, our second daughter, Mrs. Genevieve McDougal 
Turner, with her two young children, paid her respects to 
them. She suddenly died at the Turner cottage in this city 
soon after they left us, of spinal meningitis, on September 
25, 1899. Naturally I wrote my old friend of this irreparable 
loss and from him and his wife came this toucliing response: 
"We were both horrified over the great bereavement which 
overtook you and your wife. We felt as if one of our own 
had gone, for we knew and loved your sweet Genevieve. At 
such times words are meaningless, except where they can be 
accompanied by the friendly eye and grasp of the hand, to 
convey the consolation one so longs to give." 

William B. Compton, Harrisonburg, \'irginia. This 
able and successful lawyer of the Old Dominion passed to the 
Court of the final Judge of all about 1897. But I here speak 
of him as a Confederate soldier, not as a lawyer. 

He was born in Baltimore, but reared in my native county 
of Marion, was already a young lawyer, intensely Southern, 
while his father was a merchant and a Union man. 

Early in May, 1861, I attended "the Big Aluster" at 
Barracksville, in that county, and was [)resent when voung 
Compton, my elder brotlier, John Reger McDougal, and o her 
enthusiastic secession boys, enlisted in the Confederate Army, 
in the company then being recruited by William P. Thompson, 
who was the prosecuting attorney of Marion County. 

At this time my young Confederate friend was deeply in 
love with and engaged to be married to Miss Kate Kerr, who 
was the daughter of William Kerr, the high sheriff of the 
county, living out at the edge of town. In his efforts to come 
within our lines, mainly to pay his devotions to Miss Kate, and 
while he was a Confederate soldier, young Compton was twice 
captured by the captain of my company. 

His first capture was in September, 1861. Our company 



172 Recollections 

was then stationed at the long bridge over the Monongahela 
River just above Fairmont, and Captain John H. Sho waiter 
was in command. The Kerr family suspected that Black Ben 
and other Negro servants (but in truth two of the neighbors, 
Zebulon Musgrave and Otis \\'atson) reported to Captain Sho- 
walter one night their belief that Compton was then at the 
Kerr house, a mile from camp, and I was detailed as one of 
the squad to search for and capture him. Under the Captain's 
command we soon marched to and surrounded the Kerr home 
and demanded the surrender of Compton. The ladies said they 
knew nothing of him or his whereabouts and readily gave full 
permission to search the house, which was done. Then our 
Captain ordered George K. Mallory and myself to open a huge 
mahogany wardrobe with our bayonets ; that press was opened 
and, pale as a ghost, there stood Billy Compton ! At this junct- 
ure, with flashing eyes and loosened tongue, Miss Kate at- 
tacked our lieutenant, Joseph N. Pierpoint, with all the bat- 
teries of her withering, scornful, sarcastic, wrathful, vocabu- 
lary, and such a tongue-lashing as she then gave him I have 
never heard up to this date. To me she seemed about seven 
feet high, and I thought her the most beautiful woman tigress 
of earth. Poor Joe Pierpoint had to stand there and take it 
all. He died in the war, in 1863, and I never knew why or 
how it all came about until Kate's young lady daughter told 
me, at Harrisonburg, in 1898, that this terrific excoriation 
grew out of the fact that Compton and Pierpoint had been 
rivals for the hand of Miss Kate up to that night. We marched 
back to our camp with our prisoner of war; he slept in the 
tent with his old friend, our captain ; he was soon taken over to 
the military prison at Wheeling and got back into the Con- 
federate service, but just how I do not know. 

Compton's next capture was made by our same captain 
and alone, in the early spring of 1862. The latter was travel- 



Soldier Friends 1 73 

ing by train on the B. &. O. Railroad from Grafton down to 
Fairmont, when a lone man boarded the train at Nuzum's 
Mills. The stranger had his hat drawn over his eyes, and 
was apparently dressed in full citizen's clothes. Showalter at 
first suspected his identity, and then, from his manner in light- 
ing and holding his cigar, knew that it must be Compton, and 
promptly placed him under arrest. Upon Compton's person 
were later found a commission from the Confederate Sec- 
retary of War authorizing him to recruit a battery of artillery 
within our lines, together with a complete plan of the intended 
action. Then Billy was going back to revisit Kate ! Compton 
was temporarily held as a spy at the old Kearsley house in 
Fairmont. There I saw and talked to him on the following 
morning. He was by that time the same polished, suave, care- 
fully dressed young lawyer I had known in the past, while 
his superb white teeth gleamed as of old, but beneath the 
soldier bronze of war his pale face and serious talk clearly 
"betrayed his critical position as a possible spy. He firmly be- 
lieved his days were numbered, mainly because of the military 
papers found on him, and told me that nothing short of execu- 
tive clemency would save him. This time Compton was trans- 
ported to and confined in Fort McHenry, near Baltimore. 
There he was soon tried by court-martial as a spy, convicted, 
and sentenced to be executed by hanging on a day fixed. In 
his efforts to procure a mitigation of this sentence, Compton 
had his captor, Showalter, come to his prison cell, and there 
pointed out his scaffold and said he had seen that scaffold 
erected and had heard every nail driven into it from the grat- 
ing of his cell window ; but the papers found on him were fatal 
and there seemed no hope. About this tmie, and by Sho- 
walter's assistance, Compton's old father and Governor Fran- 
cis H Plcrpont journeyed from Fairmont to Washington and 
there laid all his case directly before President Lincoln. Heed- 



174 Recollections 

ing their earnest appeals, the great heart of the President was 
so touched that he then granted to Compton an indefinite 
respite. Soon after this Compton escaped from his prison 
and swam from the fort across the Patapsco River, over a 
mile and a quarter wide at that point, to the city of Baltimore,, 
where he had old schoolmates and tried and true Southern 
friends. These welcomed him with open arms as one raised 
from the dead, furnished him clothes and money, and finally 
helped him to get back into the Confederate Army. There he 
fought out the war and was in at the death, surrendering with 
Lee at Appomattox. 

Soon after the war Captain William B. Compton and 
Miss Kate Kerr were married and settled and reared their 
family at Harrisonburg. Here he became as conspicuous in 
law as he had been as a Southern soldier. In the summer of 
1898 I spent a week visiting with my old friends, the John- 
stons, of Washington, D. C, at Harrisonburg, and in company 
with my life-long friend, the Judge, called and there spent an 
evening with Kate, who was then the widow of my old friend. 
We had not met since that night at her father's home at Fair- 
mont, in r86i, and I was somewhat surprised to see her Iook- 
ing so young and fresh and small. 

Robert Henry Hunt, Kansas City, Missouri, was born 
in County Kerry, Ireland, and near the classic lakes of "ever 
fair Killarney," long ago; coming to Chicago in his youth, he 
was then a great favorite of and called "my boy" by Abraham 
Lincoln ; he drifted to Kansas in its Territorial days, there en- 
listed as a private soldier early in 1861, and was mustered out 
with the rank of colonel of the 15th Kansas at the war's close 
in 1865. 

While he served in the Corinth campaign with distinction 
and courage, yet the greater part of his military life was passed, 
m the many conflicts of the "Army of the Border" in Missouri,, 



Soldier Friends 175 

Kansas, and Arkansas. As chief of ordnance and artillery 
on the stafif of General S. R. Curtis, Colonel Hunt particularly 
distinguished himself in two conflicts: First on an expedition 
against hostile Indians in the summer of 1864, when they 
stampeded a vast herd of bufifaloes out near Fort Kearney, in 
Kansas, and these maddened monarchs of the plains in un- 
counted thousands swept down upon and threatened to trample 
beneath tiieir feet and annihilate the entire army. Just when 
despair seemed to seize all others. Colonel Hunt opened a 
vigorous fire upon the bufifaloes with his artillery, deflected 
their wild course, and saved the day and the command from 
utter destruction. The second was at the final battle out 
here at Wesport, now a part of Kansas City, on October 2t^, 
1864. Hunt commanded a park of artillery of twenty-three 
cannon ; and in speaking of that battle and its results, only a 
short time before his death. General Jo O. Shelby, who then 
commanded a (Hvision in the Confederate Army under Gen- 
eral Sterling Price, said to me: "During the entire battle, 
I often noticed a dashing artillery officer, riding a splendid 
white horse, who seemed to be all over the field at once; his 
guns j)layed sad havoc with our boys, but I am glad we didn't 
kill him. for he is now your good friend and mine — Colonel 
R. H. Hunt." 

Colonel Hunt came to Kansas City at the close of the war 
and this was his home the rest of his life. Here, as an active, 
forceful, aggressive, and progressive citizen, he amassed a 
fortune and left the strong imprint of his intelligent energy 
on most of our public afifairs. He was elected Mayor of Kan- 
sas City in 1872, later organized and commanded the 7th 
Regiment, M. N. G. ; was the genial, courteous, and attentive 
host of the Kansas City Casino, at the St. Louis World's Fair, 
in 1904; and finally was the quartermaster at the Soldier's 
Home, near Leavenworth, when the end came in 1908. 



176 Recollections 

As Mayor of the city, Hunt saw that our trade and busi- 
ness of one railroad was going to rival Missouri River towns, 
and inaugurated a movement, which proved successful, to bring 
the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe to our doors. Through 
his earnest efforts, too, the systematic plundering of our city 
offices was stopped, and a new system of bookkeeping and 
accounts was established, which is in force today. 

Close observation, extensive travel on both sides of the 
Avater. and careful reading had made Colonel Hunt a most 
interesting companion, and together we often visited in many 
of our American cities. Just after its completion, we were 
once strolling through and admiring that wondrous exposition 
of architectural skill and decorative beauty found only in the 
Library of Congress at Washington, when a turn brought us 
face to face with a mosaic, which made in memory a picture 
to be gazed upon once and worn in memory forever, and with 
uncovered head I involuntarily quoted, "Mine eyes have seen 
the glory of the coming of the Lord." The scene, the occasion, 
anfl the quotation made so profound an impression on his mind 
that the Colonel never tired of recalling the incident and re- 
peated the story in all its details the last time we ever met. 
For many long years we were neighbors and friends, and 
even now I find myself wondering if it can be possible that 
I shall never again see his erect, manly form, note his elastic, 
soldierly step, listen to his wise words, or hear his ringing 
laugh. 

Benjamin F. KellEY, Wheeling, West Virginia. The 
memory of this good man and good officer will long be re- 
spected, honored, and even revered by every one who reads and 
understands the history of the men of the big war. He re- 
cruited and was commissioned by the Secretary of War direct, 
as colonel of the First Regiment Virginia Volunteer Infantry 
(Union), and, under the orders of General McClellan. moved 



Soldier Friends 177 

his regiment from Wheeling eastward over the Baltimore and 
Ohio Railroad, on May 27, 1861. Company A of this regi- 
ment, under the command of Captain Britt, was then halted 
and reconstructed two railroad bridges destroyed by the Con- 
federates, and known in history as the "Burnt Bridges," in 
my county, and not far from my father's home, while Colonel 
Kelley and the rest of his men at once pushed on to Fairmont, 
Grafton, and then- to Pliilippi. in Barbour County, Virginia, 
where he fought and won the first real battle of the war on 
June 3, 186 1, and was there severely wounded. He was pro- 
moted to brigadier and then to major-general, and closed 
his public career as the superintendent in charge of the public 
grounds at Hot Springs in Arkansas. 

In history, as well as in fact. General Kelley enjoyed 
many unusual distinctions: He was the first colonel of a 
Lnion regiment raised south of jMason and Dixon's Line: com- 
manded in the first battle of the war; was the first Union ofiicer 
wounded in that war ; was the only brigadier-general on our 
side who while holding that rank commanded a department; 
and. most of all, was the only officer under the Stars and 
Stripes who was never once defeated in a skirmish, maneuver, 
movement, or battle. At his dying request, in 1892. his battle- 
scarred body was laid with the honors of war in Arlington 
Cemetery, nearby Washington, so "that he might rest at last 
among the soldiers." 

While Kelley's regiment marched near our home and liis 
was the first body of our troops at Farmington and Fairmont, 
yet my first sight of him was at Camp Carlisle, on WheeHng 
Island, in August. 1861. Our company of recruits was there 
drilling, and his old regiment, which was affectionately char- 
acterized as the "Rough and Ready Regiment," came to that 
camp to be mustered out of the three-months service. Pale, 
wan, still sick from his serious wound at Pliilippi, General 



178 Recollections 

Kelley drove over from the city in an open barouche to see 
and Ijid his "boys" a soldier's farewell. Just before Kelley got 
into camp, Captain Britt of his regiment had drummed out 
of camp and the Army a member of his company, and the 
scene is now before me as the fallen comrade was marched 
to the big gate to "The Rogues' March," made to go through, 
and, with his saber raised high, the big captain solemnly said: 
"Anthony Craig, by virtue of the power in me vested as the 
captain of your company, I hereby drum and muster you out 
of the service of the United States," and away went the 
dishonorably discharged Craig, while Britt marched his com- 
pany back to quarters. To me all this w'as then very solemn 
and real ; but war educates, and it was not long until I learned 
that a captain had no such authority. 

Early in December, 1863, General Kelley and I both hap- 
pened to be in Wheeling. He was then planning the histor- 
ic raid of General W. W. Averill from Grafton through the 
Virginia mountains, known as "the Salem raid," and wished 
a secret dispatch and marching orders communicated to Gen- 
eral Averill that night. He knew that I intended to return 
to my post at Clarksburg the following day, and at his order 
I was made the courier to bear the dispatch and order. At 
the B. & O. depot a special train, consisting of engine, tender, 
and one coach, stood waiting with steam up. The radroad 
tracks were cleared, the trainmen instructed to make a quick 
run, and away we flew. From Wheeling to Grafton was 
ninety-nine miles and we made the distance in ninety-six min- 
utes ! In going over that rough track and rounding the sharp 
curves, the speed was so rapid and the track so uneven that 
many of the seats in the coach were torn loose, the ice-water 
cooler thrown to the floor, and had the grim conductor jumped 
cfi", I am sure I should have followed. It was a most terrific 
night ride, and when I delivered at Grafton the order for the 



Soldier Friexds 179 

Salem raid to Averill, no one was so glad as I that it was all 
over. 

In April and May of 1864, while I was stationed at New 
Creek, we had in our second separate brigade, along with a 
lot of three-years volunteers, nine full regiments of hundred- 
days men, not especially noted for their fighting qualities. 
Captain jMcXeil, in command of his mounted rangers, made 
a dash across the Alleghanies and captured our outpost at 
Piedmont, only six miles from our headquarters. He took 
in twenty-four enlisted men of my company, burned their camp, 
bent their guns, took their side-arms, and paroled them; he 
burned the B. & O. round-house and shops, and captured and 
burned a passenger-train. Ijut when he found the express car 
stored with boxes of good things to eat for our boys at the 
front, to his everlasting honor as a soldier, he had all such 
supplies loaded into a box car, with his own hand wrote on it 
the words. "Private property— hands off. John H. .AIcXeil, 
Captain C. S. A.. Commanding," and started that car down the 
railroad grade toward our camp. He had destroyed all tele- 
graphic communication both ways, and that car coming by trac- 
tion within our picket lines at Xew Creek furnished us our first 
clew to the raid and die proximity of the enemy. When that 
car loaded by McNeil came in, a large force of our men, with 
three cannons, was at once started in pursuit, but the wily 
ranger and all his men made good their escape through moun- 
tain passes. 

A word of digression may be pardoned : For some year«; 
prior to the wac .AIcNeil was a prosperous farmer and stock- 
raiser up in Daviess County, Missouri, and spoke for the Union 
until a young son of his was killed near Lexington under cir- 
cumstances ^^hkh to him seemed murder. Then he changed; 
returning to his old home on the south branch of the Potoma?' 
he tliere reciuited his rangers. His company and ours were 



180 Recollections 

much on detached service and often fronted each other in 
battle. Each side respected the rights of the other and never 
mistreated a prisoner. When either side captured a squad of 
the otlier, the best the mess-chest afforded was never too good 
for tlie prisoners. When Captain McNeil died of wounds at 
Harrisonburg, Virginia, late in 1864, the command of their 
company fell upon the worthy shoulders of his son, Jesse Mc- 
Neil, and the latter made a most daring capture of our Gen- 
erals Crook and Kelley at Cumberland, Maryland, soon after 
taking command. After the war the McNeil family returned 
West and we were for years their neighbors and friends up 
in north Missouri. 

A colonel of one of the hundred-days regiments was 
drafted back at his home in Ohio and came to me at our head- 
quarters one morning trembling and excited, for he was sure he 
had to answer that call and serve as a drafted man. It took 
me half an hour to convince him that he was already in the 
service of Uncle Sam, was commanding his regiment at New 
Creek, and didn't have to obey that draft; but I have never 
seen any soldier so scared. 

At that time, too, Generals McCausland and Jenkins, of 
the Confederate forces, were hanging around our flanks, in 
command, so our scouts said, of large forces of the enemy, and 
McNeil and his men had joined them. So our people naturally 
e-xpected an attack daily, and just how to meet it was the ques- 
tion. General Kelley, then in command of the department, 
came up from Harper's Ferry and was in constant consulta- 
tion with my brigade commander. At his earnest request, 
I finally became his acting aide-de-camp temporarily, and 
was placed in command of a battalion of these hundred-days 
men, although only a private soldier. Well, as a youth, I 
didn't like the way many of them had gotten into the war 
game, mainly to avoid the draft; and riding a splendid white 



SoLDin ; Friexds 181 

horse and witli a red sash and sword furnished me by Kelley, 
the way I drilled those poor devils for six hours every day, 
and marched their legs nearly off, wasn't slow. Had the 
looked-for attack come, my firm purpose was to compel them 
to either cover themselves with gore and glory or perish in 
the attempt ! It is probable I hoped to have most of them fall 
in battle. But the attack was not made, the fight never came 
off, and my opportunity did not materialize. That was the 
only command 1 ever had, and it was lucky for them that my 
men of those few days didn't have to go into battle. 

'ihc people of West Virginia will erect a monument to 
General Kclley next summer on the exact spot where he fell 
wounded at Philippi, in the first battle of the Civil War. 

FiTzHUGH Lee, \"irginia. When I had the pleasure of 
introducing and hearing the first talk of two such illustrious 
lieroe^ of tlie lost cause as Fitzhugh Lee and Jo O. Shelby, 
quoted in my recollections of Shelby, as in a pleasant dream 
of the long past there came to at least one old soldier of ti.TL 
blue a vision of i86i- — of waving plumes, prancing war-horses, 
bugle-calls, army tents, soldiers in blue and gray— and again 
silent thanks were returned to the God of battles because the 
command of which I had been a member never once fronted 
the troops of either of the great Lees on the soil of our native 
State. 

But to get back to Fitz : While visiting at the home of 
Aunt Virlinda Boggess Atkinson, on Prince Street in Alex- 
andria, \'irginia, early in the spring of i865, and soon after 
the close of the war. I there met General Robert E. Lee, while 
his nephew, General Fitzhugli Lee, and myself for about ten 
days there occupied the same big room in the old mansion of 
this aunt. Then, as always, Fitz was the gallant, soldierly 
gentleman, r.r.d in the autograph albums of the Alexandria 



182 Recollections 

belles of that now far-away time one may still find the auto- 
graph of this Southern hero. He always graciously and laugh- 
ingly si^med his name this way : "Fitzhugh Lee, late Major- 
General, late C. S. A." From his demeanor, one would never 
suspect that he cared a rap for the results of the war; but a 
more genial, whole-souled gentleman never blessed a friend. 

Together, Fitz and I had more than one high old time 
with the lovely girls of quaint, historic old Alexandria, and 
visited many of its points of interest. One lazy summer after- 
noon we spent in ancient St. Paul's Cemetery, when I copied 
in full the inscription found on the tomb of the "Female Stran- 
ger." This I submitted to Aunt X'irlinda on our return and 
questioned her as to all that was known at Alexandria of the 
history and personal characteristics of this mysterious woman. 
My good old aunt had known as much of her as anyone 
there, and from her lips I then took elaborate notes of the 
woman, her illness, death, and burial. A lawyer in full prac- 
tice always errs when he prints a sketch over his own name, 
for the people generally get to regard him^ in the characteristic 
language of stalwart Zach Chandler, as "one of them damn 
literary fellers" if it be known that he can write anything but 
law. So many years later, and on January 22, 1893, I wrote 
and had printed in the Kansas City Journal a little sketch, 
taken from these old notes, containing my personal reflections 
on tlie "Grave of the Female Stranger," and there simply said 
this sketch was "By a Virginian." Well, it was soon stolen 
from that paper and reproduced in full over various names in 
many Eastern and Southern papers ; but I never said a word. 
How could I? 

While Fitz and I were there, I clipped from some local 
Virginia newspaper a little poem that l.ad the right ring to it, 
and it has been in my scrap-book ever since. Durmg the war 



Soldier Friends 183 

an English gentleman and . an intense Southern sympathiz- 
er, known in private life as Philip Stanhope Worsley, but to 
the public as the Earl of Derby, wrote and printed his trans- 
lation of Homer's "Iliad," and presented a copy of his book to 
General R. E. Lee in February, 1866. Lately I read another 
book on the "Life and Letters" of "Ole Marse Robert," con- 
taining an alleged copy of this poem ; but so many errors had 
crept into the lines that I here print it in full, just as I then 
found it in that local paper: 

Derby to Lee. 

(The following lines were written by the late Earl of 
Derby on the fly-leaf of a copy of his translation of the "Iliad," 
. presented by him to General R. E. Lee. They are a touch- 
ing evidence of sympathy and appreciation on the part of the 
scholarly nobleman who was aptly styled "The Rupert of de- 
bate." The "Ruperts" of the nineteenth century were, in 
spirit at least, ranged on the side of the South.) 

The grave old Bard who never dies. 
Receive him in our native tongue ; 

I send thee, but with weeping eyes, 
The story that he sung. 

Thy Troy has fallen — thy dear land 
Is marred beneath the spoiler's heel ; 

I cannot trust my trembling hand 
To write the grief I feel. 

Oh home of tears ! But let her bear 

This blazon to the end of time ; 
No nation rose so white and fair, 

None fell so pure of crime. 

The widow's moan, the orphan's wail. 
Are round thee; but in truth be strong; 

Eternal right, though all things fail, 
Can never be made wrong. 



184 Recollections 

An angel's heart, an angel's mouth 

(Not Homer's), could alone for me 
Hymn forth the great Confederate South, 
^'irginia first — then Lee. 

Later on, and early in 1873, we two agam met at the 
same place and together went down the Potomac from Alex- 
andria to Mcunt Vernon. General Grant was then our Pres- 
ident, and the Modoc War had been raging in the lava-beds 
of the Klamath country, in California and Oregon, for a long 
time ; Captain Jack, of that band, had already massacred Got 
eral Canby and others, and the wild generally was being played. 
Among many other guests on the return trip, we met Miss 
Nellie the President's quick-witted daughter. In a talk with 
her, in his usual gallant and debonair way, General Fitz Lee 
said: "Miss Nellie, when you get back home, kindly present 
my compliments to your distinguished father and say to him 
for me, that if he will commission me so to do, and place in 
my command the old Black Horse Cavalry of the South, I 
will at once go out West with my men and will either capture 
or kill all the Modocs in the lava-beds within forty-eight hours 
after our arrival." She was equal to the occasion, and at once 
replied : "General, you are at once the most generous and 
impudent ex-Confederate soldier whom I have met; but I will 
not deliver your message." Both laughed heartily and the in- 
cident closed. 

1 once asked Fitz how and why it was that the Confed- 
erates kept on fighting for over a year after the world realized 
that the Southern cause was lost? His answer was, that the 
leaders who dominated the South were nearly all Presbyterians, 
and therefore never knew when they were licked ! 

The kindly and tactful sending of Fitz Lee to Cuba, and 
later making him a major-general in the Spanish- American 
War in 1898, will always be appreciated by Virginians as one 



Soldier Friends 1S5 

of the most gracious acts of President McKinley. The world 
knows how well he fought for the South, and will not soon 
forget his gallantry in the later brush ; but to the old soldier 
it was always a bit incongruous to think of Fitz Lee and old 
Joe Wheeler as wearing the blue uniform and loyally com- 
manding United States soldiers ; yet both did it with honor and 
glory. 

The last letter I had from Fitz Lee came to me not long 
before his death and expressed his grateful appreciation for my 
little tribute to General Shelby and himself. His best friends 
never claimed that Fitzhugh Lee was the greatest of his name ; 
but it is certain that in peace, as in war, he was always a power 
to be reckoned with ; while his charm was that with a smile of 
satisfaction he seemed to take a positive pleasure in both say- 
ing and doing the right thing, in the right way and at the right 
time. 

Joseph H. McGeE, Gallatin, Missouri. Was born in Cler- 
mont County, Ohio, July 6, 182 1 ; vividly recalled all the inci- 
dents of the night "the stars fell" there in November, 1833 ; 
learned the trade of a tailor; removed to Missouri in 1837; 
recollected the facts relating to the "^Mormon War" ; the organ- 
ization and settlement of a city called Adam-on-di-Ahman 
(the grave of Adam) northwest of Gallatin, the Gallatin fight 
between the Alormons and the Missourians in October, 1838, 
the burning of the then little town and the capture and release 
of himself on that day ; the personnel of the Mormon leaders, 
and finally the flight of the Danites and their associates in the 
following year ; he married, went to California for gold in 1850, 
and returned home in 1852; taught school; was elected and 
served as clerk of the Daviess County Court, and when first 
I met him at Gallatin in 1866, he had gallantly served through- 
out tlie Civil War in the ist M. S. ^I. Cavalry and been mus- 
tered out witli the rank of major. 



1S6 Recollections 

In the spring of 1867 Governor Thomas C. Fletcher ap- 
pointed Major McGee as the first Judge of the Daviess County 
Court of Common Pleas, just authorized, and in this office he 
served till the fall of 1868, and not one of his many decisions 
in all that time was ever reversed by the Supreme Court. He 
was not a trained lawyer, and knew it Many a time I heard 
him say to strong, able men at the bar of his court : "Gentlemen, 
your arguments are unusually good ; I don't pretend to know 
just what the law of this case is; but I do know what justice 
requires, and that I will do." The secret of his judicial success 
was that he had good "horse sense" and used it. In his many 
conferences on law, business, or policies, he made it a point to 
remain absolutely silent until all others had spoken ; then his 
final judgment, after mastering the theories of others, was in- 
variably sound. So he became known as the settler of all con- 
troversies, and was always wise and sagacious. Accustomed 
to the Old Dominion dignity and courtesy, as a young law 
student, I sti oiled into Judge McGee's court-room at his first 
session to see and know just how justice was there adminis- 
tered. New in the West, and not up on its free and easy ways 
then, I was first surprised to see the Judge trying a jury case, 
but sitting down among the lawyers and smoking a pipe; but 
was horrified a minute later to see a long-legged, slouchy cuss 
from the Dog Creek country walk in and hear him address his 
Honor thus: "Say, Joe, gimme a light." In true old soldier 
fashion, the Judge handed this man his pipe, the bowl was put 
over the caller's pipe and the smoke came from both ; Judge 
McGee's pipe being returned, the two smoked away, and that 
trial proceeded. And I thought: "What a great opportunity 
Harper misses by not having an artist here to sketch this scene." 
Yet in less than a year I too was smoking a pipe at that same 
bar among the lawyers of good old Daviess County. 

At the general election in 1868 Major McGee was elect- 



Soldier Friends 187 

ed and for two years served as the Missouri State Register 
of Lands, and was again nominated for the office in 1870, but 
went down in defeat along with our other nominees of the 
RepubHcan party. 

Later on he was the U. S. Marshal for the Western Dis- 
trict of Alissouri, with headquarters at Kansas City, and was 
succeeded in that office in December, 1885, by Colonel Elijah 
Gates, who was appointed thereto by President Cleveland. 

When first I knew this grand, good man, his face was 
full and ruddy, with sandy hair and whiskers, and, like the 
soldier and hero he was, he stood above six feet high. But 
when he died at his Gallatin home in 1905, the snows of 
eighty-four winters had turned his hair snow white, the soldier 
slept, the strange and sudden dignity of death was his, and long 
years had laid low the once intellectual giant of the Grand 
River country. His "Memoirs" have since been printed by 
Rollin J. Britton, a gifted young lawyer of the Gallatin bar. 

In writing of Major AIcGee, I throw in this incident, for, 
not unlike others, I always feel a strong temptation to say a 
word about my children anyway. He had known and been 
fond of our boy, John Edmund McDougal ("Ned"), ever since 
he was a baby at Gallatin, and one summer evening here, many 
years ago, we three were sitting on the front porch at home out 
on Troost Aveune. The Alajor was here visiting me and our 
talk at first ran on war-times and the law ; but all three natu- 
rally fell into a discussion of the vacation then being taken by 
Mrs. McDougal and all other members of the household, when 
that boy, not over ten, in his earnest way, sagely and truly 
said : "The absence of Mother always transforms this home 
into a mere house." 

As Gallatin was long my home, it may not be inappropriate 



188 RiCCOLLIvCTlONS 

to here reproduce my letter to one of the newspapers mere on 
October 24, 1908: 

"Dear Missourian: — Forty-two years ago to-day my wan- 
dering feet first pressed the sacred soil of dear old [Missouri. 
To-day, at nearly sixty-four years af age, 1 am still proud of 
the fact that 1 then came to this State, and prouder yet that for 
nearly twenty years 1 was a resident and citizen of Daviess 
County — then 1 came and have since lived here. 

"But on that day, now so long ago, I came into Missouri 
over the H. & St. Joe R. R., and my first stop was at the then 
grand hotel called the 'Planter's House' at Chillicothe. That 
town was then a 'hummer.' The songs of the saw, hammer, 
and axe and the kissing of the seductive billiard-balls were 
heard all night long, and settlers in 'free Missouri' were ar- 
riving on every train. The next morning J took passage 
on the lumbering stage-coach of that time, and through the 
mud and the rain slowly made my way up to Bancroft, in 
the northeast part of your county. My father and family had 
removed to that county in the spring of '66, and, having been 
a private soldier in the Union Army all through the Civil War, 
I had seen but little of them since '61. So I was naturally 
anxious to visit them all, and no twenty-four miles ever seemed 
so long. My intention was to be with the family for ten days 
and then go to either the Pacific slope or to South America. 
But we got into Bancroft in the rain before night-time, and 
you may well believe that there was then a happy reunion of the 
Clan McDougal. The following morning the sun was up long 
before I was. The day was most beautiful, and from the roof 
of his brand-new house, just west of town, my father showed 
me the roofs of twenty-seven other new houses that had all 
gone up that year. Right then and there that view and the 
'Bancroft prairies' captured me, and I have ever since been 
their willing slave. Since '66 I have traveled much over and 
through this wondrous American continent, but never have I 
seen a more fertile country or one that was in any way better 
than those same prairies. 

"Full of youth and hope and fire and energy, I was then 
a young man, and soon went down to Gallatin. Those ot yua 
who live there now, with your schools, churches, public build- 
ings, and all the mcxlern and luxurious appointments of home, 
can hardly appreciate Callatiri as I first saw it, forty-two years 
ago. My memory is good, but if there was a sidewalk of 



Soldier Friends 189 

any kind in town twenty consecutive feet in length, or a 
fresh brush of paint on any residence in the place ( except the 
home of Captain John Balhnger, who was that year elected 
sheriiT), I do not now recall either. 

"Going at once into the office of Judge Dodge and begin- 
ning the study of the law, having no family ties and no friends 
short of the Bancroft country, you can perhaps understand 
how and why it was that for a time I was a trifle lonesome. 
This speedily passed away, and for many happy and pros- 
perous years in your midst I was blessed with an abundance 
of good friends and clients. In the early days we did not have 
the up-to date entertainments you now have. We were then 
fourteen miles from a railroad, amusements were scarce, 
'The ]\Iaiden's Prayer' or 'Smith's ^vlarch' was the summit 
of the then few piano-players, and many a time, for want of 
something else to do, with a lot of good fellows have I sat 
about 'the Square' in the cool of a summer evening, watching 
the flight of millions of chimney swallows as they swiftly 
whirled around in the air and Anally flew into the various 
chimneys of your old court-house. Then Richardson, Mc- 
Feran. Sheets. Dodge. Leopard, McGee. Hargis. Cravens, Clin- 
gan, Woodruff, St.ne. Coulson, Conover. Hicklin, Venable, Os- 
born, Givens. Lawson, Brosius, Jacobs, Grantham. Brown, 
Deistlehorst. Bowen, Taylor. Hill, Folmsbee, Peniston, Knauer, 
\\'ynn, Buchols, Keene, and many others whose names are 
not recalled at the moment, were in their glory ; but they are 
all dead and gone now, and the present generation hardly re- 
calls either name or achievement. So it goes, and may be 
it is just as well. But the few survivors stop and look back- 
ward now and then and do not attempt to repress a sigh be- 
cause the old friends and old times are gone forever. A 
thousand pleasing yet sad memories will come up, and the sole 
question with the old timer is : What shall not be said ? 

"Away back in sunny Tennessee, and long ago, originated 
the saying that 'He who once drinks of the waters of Caney 
Fork returns there to die' ; and the same is true of Grand 
River. This thought, not less than the hope of meeting and 
greeting many an old-time friend, led me to go back to Gal- 
latin to pay one more tribute of afl^ectionately grateful re- 
spect to the people of Daviess Countv at the dedication of their 
splendid new court-house on the fifth of this month. That 
tribute was paid in silence, for I sat alone, and with utter 



IIK) Recollections 

strangers, away back in the audience, and with thoughtful 
attention Hstened to the many excellent addresses and solemn 
ceremonies attending that dedication. If lips and tongue were 
silent, my thoughts upon the olden time were not ; and I could 
but think: What could and would many of the silent slum • 
berers have then said could they once more come back and 
face Daviess County? Most of them were there long before 
my day and knew all about the people and their history from 
early pioneer times but they were not there to witness their 
own triumph. 

"Well, I was and am glad I attended that dedication. The 
older lawyers learned to 'think on their feet' in the old court- 
house, while the new ones can do the same thing in the new. 
Tender memories will cling around the old so long as the ear- 
lier settlers shall last; but in so providing for the wants and 
the needs of present and future generations you have done 
both wisely and well. As long as you live this new building 
will be your safety, your pride, and your glory." 

Five years ago the pictures of the "Old Guard" of Gallatin 
were reprinted. Most of these are named among the dead 
in my letter of 1908. But of them 1 then said in local print: 

"Dear Democrat: — 1 thank you sincerely for the compli- 
ment imjilied in your courteous request for me to write a com- 
munication relating to the 'Old Guard,' whose pictured faces 
are so admirably reproduced in your last issue, but in saying 
that such a communication would be appreciated and gladly 
published you make a proposition so rash as to convmce me 
that you don't know how easy it is for me to speak with the 
pen upon a subject that interests me so much and that I love 
so well as 'The "Old Guard" of Gallatin.' 

"You see. I first struck Gallatin in the fall of 1866, an act- 
ive young fellow, with an abundant accumulation of good 
clothes, bottomed with a $17 pair of Benkert Scotch-soled boots 
and crowned with an ultra-fashionable plug hat, but without 
either money or friends in the town, and the 'Old Guard' of to- 
day, in all the rugged, honest, honorable power and glory of 
lusty, vigorous manhood, was then 'on guard.' To be thus 
togged out was not the best possible advertisement for a young 
stranger in, that country and at that time, for most of the 'Old 
Guard' then wore the 'brush' hat (the survivors will recol- 
lect it), and cowskin boots were then in fashion there, and 



v^OLDiER Friends 191 

jeans pants were in evidence everywhere. I soon found out 
that, while not arrayed in purple and fine linen, my attire was 
against me and that this elegant plug hat was the pet aversion 
of many. But I had been through the Big War, had trav- 
eled the country over, had seen the elephant and pulled his 
tail, and knew some things, and I soon determined to become 
and remain in all tilings as nearly like those with whom I had 
cast my lot as possible, and to win their esteem and friendship; 
so I at once entered the office of jutlge Doilge as a law stu- 
dent, and from that time on until I was admitted to the bar 
in '68 I worked like a Trojan in getting uj) the first abstract 
of land titles in Daviess County and studied law far into each 
night, denying myself all the pleasures of the time and place 
excepting base-ball. No member of the "Old Guard' ever 
treated me or any other stranger with the slightest discourtesy, 
but in my case they simply and wisely watched and waited to 
properly size me up. Captain Ballinger was the first man 
to pat me on the back and say, 'Young man, you are pursu- 
ing the right course; keep it up — you '11 win." Then courtly 
Major Clingan spoke most kindly and encouragingly, other; 
did the same, and the first thing T knew I became, without 
naturalization or even muster-in, a full-Hedged member in gocd 
standing of the 'Old Guard" of to-day. and until I left Gal- 
latin to come to Kansas City in 1885, I was in almost daily 
contact vvith all the members in every relation of life between 
man and man in time of peace. To say that I honored, re- 
spected, and loved them all is but to publicly repeat that which 
I have often said in private. 

"I have known many places and peoples, yet for sterling 
integrity, correct living, thinking, and acting, warm-hearted 
and generous-handed friendship, high courage, standing, and 
character, sobriety, industry, kindness, and loyalty to country, 
family, and friends, I know of no body of men on earth that 
have or deserve a higher place in the afi'ections of a friend than 
my fellows of the 'Old Guard' of Gallatin. The surviving 
members of that noble band of men, as well as the childre-, 
descendants, and friends of all the members, owe to Rollin J. 
Britton, for his loving, painstaking care in securing and pre- 
serving in permanent form this group of pictures, a debt of 
gratitude that neither time nor money can repay, and I am 
sure that T but voice the sentiment of all the survivors, as 
well as the descendants of the dead, in here tendering him 



192 JRecollections 

our honest, heartfelt thanks for his invaluable labor of love. 

"I have just now again looked over each of the pictured 
faces, and what a flood of tender and heroic memories each 
face brings back to me ! 'Cheers for the living, tears for the 
dead.' 

"Thus far I have spoken of the 'Old Guard' in the aggre- 
gate and in justice to you and your patrons dare not go further, 
for the reason that if I should take advantage of your gen- 
erous offer and write and you print all the good and interesting 
things I recall and could easily write of each man in this group, 
that matter vi^ould absorb every column of your paper for 
weeks, your ads would be crowded out, and you would for 
all that time be deprived of the pleasure of cussin' Republic- 
ans ! I cannot get my own consent to deprive you of this 
profit and pleasure, and. as it is now nearing the noon of ni;ht, 
I reluctantly bid you and the 'Old Guard' an affectionate good- 
night." 

This same Major McGee was so closely connected with 
the following stories that I also reprint my communication 
of last year (1908) on the early-day Christmas in Gallatin: 

"Dear Missoiirian: — Your roving request for me to make 
you a few broken remarks on 'An barly Christmas in Galla- 
tin' applies with equal force to any Christmas from 1866 to 
1884, for during all these years I lived among you and could 
easily paint a composite picture of any one or all of these days. 
Now, if my orders only permitted it, I 'd like to wander away 
back to the days of the Civil War and tell you of the occur- 
rences of any Christmas day from 1861 to 1865. I now re- 
call them all distinctly while in the service of Uncle Sam, and 
just how we ]nit in each day — in camp, or on the march, or 
in tlie fight, or in 'pressing into the service' a chicken or a 
pig or any other vicious animal that might have bitten the 
'boys in blue.' In those far-away times we often marched 
and fought and retreated all in the same day. I am rather 
glad of it now, though it wasn't a bit funny then. Then, you 
know, it was 'war to the knife, and knife to the hilt' ; for Amer- 
icans were against Americans, and it is no wonder that our side 
sometimes got licked. Early in life, however, I learned that 
the first duty of a soldier is to obey orders; and, as you call 
for a Gallatin story only. T suppose T must follow the example 
of hi^ fellow-Sunday-school scholar that Milt Ewing used to 



Soldier Friends 193 

tell us about. That boy told his teacher in Ohio that he 'just 
must have Sinbad the Sailor, begosh ! or nothin'.' 

"Christmas, 1866. 
"The story I am going to tell you didn't happen on that 
exact (lay, but it is the first that comes to mind and actually 
(Hd occur along about that time. Joseph H. Herndon (we 
then called him 'Hi' for short) then kept a general store at 
Gallatin on the corner where is now located the Farmers' Ex- 
change Bank, and my brother Fes was his clerk. Although 
two years my junior, this brother is now a white-whiskered 
old cha]) living up at Princeton, Mo., and is a trifle better now 
than tlicn, while I remain about the same. Well, about that 
time Will R. Hendricks and his brother Abe, of the Bancroft 
country, happened in Gallatin in a big sleigh and insisted that, 
as it was Christmas-time, we two should go driving with them 
and pay a visit to our father, who lived near by them. The 
weather was fearfully cold, the snow over a foot deep, and 
we just had to have something to keep us warm — all being 
old soldiers. So we went from 'Hi's' store over to John T. 
Taylor's drug store, then on the east side of the public square, 
and procured the necessary refreshments (just as good for man 
as beast), done up in a glass bottle. But 'Uncle John' was 
as wise in his day and generation as are Ilarfield and his other 
successors in this, and then assured us that it was against the 
law to permit that bottle to go out of his store 'dryso.' Hence 
he 'medicated' it by placing therein (it was a quart) an inch 
roll of cinnamon bark ! H that bark either hurt or helped the 
liquor, we never found it out. Thus armed and equipped, 
however, we started, and after much trial, snow, cold, and 
tribulation, finally arrived at the home of their father, Eli 
Hendricks, where we had a bully good dinner. Then we 
drove to father's house, took my sisters Delia and Hattie in 
the sleigh, and all went on to a Mr. Pierce's, southeast of 
Bancroft, where we had a great dance that night. Let 's see, 
that was about forty-two years ago. T wonder to-niglit if all 
the merry dancers of that night are still on earth? Some of 
them I know are not, but I hope most of them are. 

"Christmas. 1867. 
"In November. 1867. John Reno and his gang had robbed 
the Daviess County safe of about $23,000. and about De- 
cember 15, 1867. Captain John Ballinger. who was then sheriflF 



194 Recollections 

of your county, ably assisted by Captain Joab Woodruff and 
Alex M. Irving, of your city, captured Reno at a hotel in In- 
dianapolis and brought and lodged him in your county jail. 
Reno told me tliat when he saw Captain Woodruff's jeans 
breeches and 'brush' hat in tliat hotel, he knew at once that the 
jig was up. and surrendered as quietly and quickly as possible. 
Along in jail with Reno, and charged with complicity in the 
same crime, were' Daniel Smith, of near Gallatin, and Frank 
Sparks, of Indiana. Sheriff Ballinger, always as brave as a 
lion, felt alarmed lest the friends of Reno should rescue him 
or a mob of infuriated citizens of Daviess County should take 
Reno and his gang out and hang them. So, to quiet his ap- 
prehensions, jehiel T. Day, Crow Dunn, Will Hargis, Clay 
Peniston, Thomson Brosius, and myself, all young fellows 
then, volunteered to stay in jail and guard these prisoners. 
We soon became known throughout the country as the 'Na- 
tional Gaard' and remained on duty day and night until Reno, 
upon being arraigned in circuit court, pleaded guilty, was 
duly sentenced by Judge Jonas J. Clark, and was started on 
his way to Jefferson City early in January, 1868, to there serve 
a term of "twenty-five years in our State penitentiary for his 
crime. We were there on duty in that jail on Christmas 
day, 1867. 

"While so engaged there in guarding these prisoners late 
one night along about Christmas, Sparks was called for in a 
quiet but most unusual manner. Captain Ballinger, IMajor 
McGee, and Bob Grantham, all public officers then, came into 
the jail looking grave and thoughtful, and, with Sparks in 
their midst, went out into the darkness. In a few minutes, 
away down the gulch, where old Jerry Casey (colored) used 
to live, we heard several musket-shots fired. Two or three 
of our men who were in the game (I wasn't) sighed heavily 
and muttered, "Poor Sparks!" After this funereal occur- 
rence the same officers returned to the jail and in the same way 
called for Smith, and this time I was one of the party called 
to go and helji execute the prisoner! We took him out under 
a tree in tlie court-house yard. Smith was asked if he had 
anything to say before he died. He said he would like to 
pray, au'l, kneeling down on the cold, wet earth, the doomed 
man uttered a prayer that was at once the most earnest, im- 
pressive, and powerful anneal to the Throne to which T have 
ever listened. Here in mv cosv den at home I even now re- 



Soldier Friicnds 195 

call the outline of that marvelous prayer. In tones that would 
have convinced a wooden cigar sign, he called upon God to 
witness his innocence; prayed for his wife and children, family 
and friends ; for John Reno, who had brought him to the very 
shadow of the gallows; and closed with an appeal for the for- 
giveness of 'the officers of the law who were then about to take 
the life of an innocent man.' A rope was produced ; one end 
of it was fastened around the prisoner's neck and the other 
thrown over the limb of a tree. The command was given, 
'String him up!' I was new in the country — not accustomed 
to that sort of thing. I thought to myself, 'This is hell; but 
here I am auiong the vigilantes of the far West, and I 'm one 
of them.' So with the others I pulled on that rope, and in 
the dim and dark of that murky night in December, '67. I now 
see Smith dangling in the air. I thought it was the real thing, 
and that I was actually engaged in an earnest, patriotic effort 
to murder a man! But before the breath left Smith, he was 
let down and again asked not to appear before his God with 
a lie on his lips and was again urged to confess all. Protest- 
ing his innocence still, he was swung up twice more and let 
down each time. Whether guilty or not, I never knew, but 
both he and Sparks went free. 

"The I. O. D. C. C. B. of Gallatin. 

"Christmas, holidays, and Sundays were pretty much all 
alike in the early times at Gallatin. All railroads were many 
miles away; daily papers and telegrams were scarce, good 
readers and good singers scarcer, and religious revivals, joint 
debates on baptism, and the annual advent of the circus were 
our principal amusements ; yet it was a good town to live in. 
I was then a young law student and my time wasn't worth 
near as much as that of a good, industrious hen ; yet everybody 
else seemed reasonably busy, without any hurry, or bustle, 
or rush about anything. Philosophical problems never vexed 
the people then, nor were we remorselessly scientific nor 
ferociously virtuous at that time. So, along with business 
and other every-day work, loafing became a sort of fine art; 
and aside from our personal aft'airs, no one either took or had 
any special interest in any given matter that did not directly 
concern him. 

"But then, as now, the desire of the young men was to 
strike out and subdue some new field ; to do something not 
yet undertaken. This, feeling, as one of the direct results 



196 Recollections 

of our association in tliis 'National Guard,' led up, naturally- 
enough, to the formation of Gallatin's crowning glory — the 
I. O. D. C. C. B. Early in 1868 this then famous club was 
formally and finally sprung upon an unsuspecting world. It 
was for bachelors only, and at first it was purely a literary 
afifair. Its original purposes, however, were soon discarded 
as being entirely too tame for time anrl place and members. 
I now have before me, in my own handwriting, covering eight 
sheets of legal cap, with five Articles and heaven only knows 
how many sections, the original constitution of that club. 
This is all duly signed b\- fifteen Gallatin bachelors: Chris- 
topher C. Gilliland, Henry C. AIcDougal, J. Ambrose Brough- 
ton, Alilt Evving, William A. Hargis, David T. Johnson, Jehiel 
T. Day, Joshua F. Hicklin, John M. Cravens, Henry H. Da- 
vis, H. Clay Peniston. Ross J. Singer, James T. (Crow) Dunn, 
Charles A. Shaw, and David S. Howe. Of course every mem- 
ber obligated himself never to get married and naturally every 
man violated that obligation. I was not its chief ; Day was, 
and him wi always addressed as 'the G. C. P.' Take him 
around the corner some fine day; he could (but won't) tell 
you all about our club. If you would know as much about 
it all as has ever been in print, then turn back in your files to 
your issue of The Missourian of date May 5, 1881, and see 
how I then wrote nearly a page of your paper in describing 
this club, and Day's then very recent marriage to Mrs. Paul- 
ine Fisher Davis. He was the last of our club to go the way 
of all the earth as a bachelor, and of all the jolly good dogs 
in that once happy and care- free kennel. Day is the only one 
now living in Gallatin. Nearly all the other members have 
long since been mustered out of life and the few living sur- 
vivors are widely scattered. I trust our dead are all in the 
'Land o' the Leal' to-night, waiting on the banks of the farther 
shore with outstretched hands to again meet and greet and 
welcome their few surviving brethren. My heart wanders 
back again to these boy friends of mine. All deserve a home 
in heaven, I 'm thinking, for in its day that Club did much 
good and no harm," 

Thom..\s a. Maulsby, Fairmont, West Va. Just when 
I first met this gallant soldier and his young wife I do not now 
recall; but it was long, long ago, they were newly wedded 
and I a boy. I was devoted to them; we then lived near each 



Soldier Friends 197 

other, and now they have both joined "the silent majority." In 
1861 he became the captain of Company C of my regiment, 
and a httle later his company became "Maulsby's Battery." 
While he and his battery were holding the Confederate Army 
in check at the battle of Martinsburg in June, '63, a rifle- 
shot lamed him for life; he was wounded nigh unto death 
and they sent him to the hospital at Clarksburg. Aly meals 
were then served at this hospital, and three times every day 
Charlie Eyster and I met at the Captain's cot and there sung 
war-songs of faith and hope and triumph until the pale, wan 
face of our beloved friend at last relaxed into grateful smiles. 
He never fully recovered from this wound ; but always be- 
lieved these little boyish diversions then saved his life. The 
story of my last visit to this good man has been told in print 
by a friend so much better than I can tell it that her letter to 
his home paper is here reproduced : 

"Washington, D. C. 1332 \' Street, N. \V. 

"August I, 1907. 
"Editor of The West Virginian:. . 

"Proclaiming myself a veteran of the Civil War only be- 
cause I saw much of its field and camp life, I want to tell you 
a little story that led up to a most touching reunion of three 
Marion County veterans up at Mountain Lake Park, Mary- 
land, the other day. 

"Throughout that war, my husband was an official in 
the U. S. Quartermaster's Department, and wherever duty 
called him, there was I. 

"Among a number of young Union soldiers to whom I 
became a sort of big sister, was a tall, slender, smooth-faced 
Virginia boy, whom I first met at Grafton, West Virginia, 
in '63. Later on our office force was ordered to Gallipolis, 
Ohio, and when mustered out in the summer of '64, this boy 
joined us there, he and my husband working side by side in the 
same office, and we were members of the same military fam- 
ily until the w'ar closed. 

"Then the young soldier-clerk went west 'to grow up 
with the country,' and we settled down in our home in this 
city. He became a lawyer, and for years his professional 



198 Recollections 

duties have often called him to Washington before the Su- 
preme Court of the United States and the departments. The 
friendship of war-times remains unbroken, and when his work 
permits the diversion, he has always been a welcome guest 
at our home. That soldier boy is now Judge Henry Clay 
McDougal, of Kansas City, Alissouri. 

"Back in the war-times I often heard him speak of Cap- 
tain Alaulsby, and some years ago I read a speech which he 
made at a reunion of Maulsby's Batter^'. From all this I 
knew that the Judge and the Captain were bound together by 
the strongest ties of comradeship and friendship. So when the 
Judge, who was again at Washington on legal business, came 
to my home the other evening, with a telegraphic invitation 
urging him to visit Captain Maulsby at Mountain Lake Park, 
and asked me to join him, I readily consented, for he needed 
the recreation and I wanted it. 

"Being an old campaigner myself, I was soon ready, and 
together we two hiked off the next morning for the moun- 
tains over the B. and O., riding in a palace car, taking a su- 
perb luncheon in the dining-car. 'This is a trifie different,' 
quietly said the Judge, 'from the way I traveled over the same 
road in the war ; for then we rode in cattle-cars and subsisted 
on hard tack and flitch.' 

"Arriving at Mountain Lake Park, we were warmly 
welcomed by Captain Maulsby, who during the three-days re- 
union provided us with comfortable quarters and abundant 
rations, to say nothing of the delightful drives through OaK- 
land, Deer Park, and the adjacent mountains. And such a 
reunion ! Present for duty : Captain Thomas A. ]\Iaulsby, 
of Fairmont, West Virginia, late commander of Maulsby's 
famous battery ; Private Henry C. McDougal, late of Com- 
pany A, 6th West Virginia Infantry ; and Captain Amos N. 
Prichard, late of the 12th West Virginia Infantry. All three 
went into the Union Army early in the Civil War, fought 
it out, and suffered all its privations, but would do it all over 
again to save the Union. 

"These meetings by the wayside are becoming infrequent, 
for the boys of '61 are fast falling in line for the last roll-call. 

"But those who stood shoulder to shoulder in the ranks, 
wdio shared the hardship and danger of march and battlefield, 
who joined in the frolic and hilarity of camp-life, and who 
with honor, and often with scarred and maimed bodies, re- 



Soldier Friends 199 

turned to the duties of civil life, have one and all a love for 
their comrades 'passing the love of woman.' 

"Though the years have brought gray hairs, and cruel 
wounds still ache, the three were once more boys again, in 
spite of the fact that Captain Prichard boasts of more than 
four-score years to his credit and Captain Maulsby has passed 
the allotted three-score years and ten, while Judge McDougal 
has just scored the retiring age of sixty-two, which does not 
spell retirement for him by any means. 

"Each has known the other for a lifetime, and each loves 
the other like a brother ; so that this brief meeting will live in 
their memories as long as life lasts. 

"Others, too, who shared their happiness will not forget 
their recital of war-time experiences, their singing of songs of 
camp and battlefield — 'Marching through Georgia,' 'Bingen 
on the Rhine,' 'Babylon Is Fallen,' and the like, often rang out 
in the grand old woods of the mountains. 

"As these three veteran cronies talked together of their 
youth, early manhood, the dangers and glories of the war, and 
of comrades long since mustered out of life, more than once 
a voice grew tremulous, a chin quivered, eyes moistened, and 
I expected a breakdown ; but it didn't come until the morning 
we left. Then, as Captain Maulsby and the Judge were super- 
intending the replacing at the front of the newly painted house 
the sign 'Maulsby's Cottage,' the Judge suggested that it be 
changed to read : 'Headquarters Maulsby's Battery.' This 
brought a flood of recollections to both ; but the Captain went 
inside his cottage and the Judge sat with the rest of us 
on the front porch. No one was speaking, when, without 
warning, the Captain came out on his crutches with his old 
war-time red sash of a captain of artillery gracefully around 
his now rotund form, his sword-belt (now a world too short), 
and his Colt's Navy revolver in the service-worn scabbard. All 
arose and gave him the military salute ; but the sight of those 
old familiar equipments of war which the Judge had seen the 
Captain wear as a slender young officer, or the look upon the 
Captain's face, or something that old veterans may understand, 
quite overcame both. The Judge surveyed the Captain for 
a moment. Neither spoke. Then their eyes met and soon 
both were in tears. To see these two grand men — strong, 
stalwart veterans of the great war — crying in each other's 



200 Recollections 

arms, was a most touching sight, and out of sheer sympathy the 
rest of us joined our grateful tears with theirs. 

"A few moments later we broke camp. The grand re- 
union was ended. God grant that it may not be their last. 

"Mrs. Frances A. Johnston.'' 

Editorial comment on the above letter : 
"A Grand Reunion. 

"The West Virginian publishes elsewhere in to-day's paper 
a most interesting account of a reunion of Civil War veterans 
at Mountain Lake Park. The story is charmingly written and 
the names it contains are so near and dear to the people of this 
community that the account will be read with intense inter- 
est, and we doubt not that many an eye will be moistened be- 
fore the story is finislied. The days of old will be lived over 
in memory by the comrades of Captains Prichard and Maulsby 
and Judge McDougal when they read of the meeting of these 
veteran soldiers at 'Headquarters Maulsby's Battery' at Moun- 
tain Lake Park. We are glad of the privilege of publishing 
such an interesting story as that written by Mrs. Johnston." 

James A. Mulligan, Chicago, Illinois. Prior to the war 
this distinguished Irish-American lawyer and soldier prac- 
ticed his profession at Chicago and there incidentally command- 
ed a military organization composed of his fellow-countrymen, 
officially the Shields Guards, but called in history "The Mulli- 
gan Guards." Early in 1861 he recruited and later command- 
ed the 23d Illinois Infantry. Its officers and men, in honor of 
Erin's Isle, alike wore green shirts, and by reason of this 
peculiarity and their soldierly appearance never failed to at- 
tract attention in camp, on march, and in battle. Every man 
of the regiment was a fighter, and the command was always 
known as the "Irish Brigade." 

With his regiment Mulligan was at Quincy, St. Louis, 
and Jefiferson City, and from the latter point marched over- 
land to and j^articipated in the famous siege and battle at Lex- 
ington, Missouri, in September, 1861. At the close of this 



Soldier Friends 201 

fighting. Colonel JMuUigan, who was in command, surren- 
dered our forces to General Sterling Price. Nearly all his offi- 
cers and men were then ])aroled, and it was several months 
until the regiment came together again. Colonel Mulligan de- 
clined a parole for himself on the ground that his Government 
did not recognize as belligerents the officers or men of the 
Missouri State Guard, then commanded by Price. So he was 
treated as a prisoner of war, and General Price carried hinr 
Southward and the two became warm friends. After his ex- 
change for Colonel Frost of the opposition. Colonel Mulli- 
gan returned and again assumed command, but this time in 
the Army of the East. 

While in command of a separate brigade at New Creek 
on the Upper Potomac in the early spring of 1864, Mulli- 
gan and his old regiment nearly all re-enlisted and went to 
their Chicago homes on the veteran furlough of thirty dayS, 
and that command temporarily devolved upon Colonel Wil- 
kinson, of my regiment. When they returned to the field, I 
was at New Creek as the chief clerk of that brigade, and 
as such for a time was subject to the orders of Colonel Mulli- 
gan. When on duty or dress parade there, no officer of the 
war was a stricter diciplinarian, talked less, or was more of 
a martinet. One tap on his hearquarters silver bell called 
to his side Martin J. Russell, his assistant adjutant-general; 
two taps, his aide-de-camp, James H. Nugent; another, the 
chief clerk. We often saw his big bold handwriting on 
memoranda for his military orders and letters, or listened to 
his curt words of command ; but unless he propounded a di- 
rect question, neither of us ever spoke one word, for we were 
not there to talk or suggest anything, and knew it. But when 
off duty, no one could talk more or better than he, and in his 
green shirt and undress, it was his especial pleasure to mix 



202 Recollections 

and mingle and wrestle with his old "boys," for then he was 
one of them and gave no thought to rank. His tall, command- 
ing, handsome form, rollicking Irish wit, and infectious laugh 
made him a warm welcome anywhere in the Army, and es- 
pecially so in his "Irish Brigade." His home was in the sad- 
dle, and his imposing abandon, picturesque appearance on 
horseback at the head of his men, with his long, glossy hair, 
flowing moustache, and eagle eyes, was always the signal for 
wild cheers for "Mullig_.n and his Irish boys." 

Although a man and officer of unquestioned courage and 
ability, yet Colonel Mulligan was not in political accord with the 
Washington administration, and I have always believed that 
this was the only reason that his merits were not rewarded by a 
general's commission until it came — after he fell in battle. In 
the hard lighting in the valley of Virginia, under the command 
of that other eminent Irish-American, General Phil Sheridan, 
while leading his division at the battle of Kernstown, on July 
24, 1864, tlie sometimes spectacular, yet always gallant and 
efficient Colonel Mulligan fell mortally wounded and soon 
died. I was then told that the Colonel and his beloved wife's 
young brother, "Jimmie" Nugent, whom I knew well, both 
received their death wounds and yielded their lives for their 
country within the same hour. 

Early in the war and before the Lexington siege, the old 
23d Illinois was stationed for a time at our State capital. 
Colonel Mulligan had a habit of detailing Captain Robert 
Adams, Jr., of tliat regiment, as R. <^. M. and all sorts of 
other assignments which required a knowledge of the law 
and the use of the pen. This grew irksome, but the Captain 
stood for it all, until one day their adjutant, who had then 
assumed command of the regiment, in the absence of the field 
officers, for some supposed infraction of military law, arrest- 



Soldier Friends 203 

ed and placed one of the Captain's men in the guard-house. 
The war and its volunteer soldiers were then young; no one 
knew or cared much at that time about "the rules and regu- 
lations," and this outrage on one of his own men was more 
then the Captain would stand. So he marched his entire 
company to that guard-house and promptly released the prison- 
er ! Fully resolved that if he could not fight in peace in the 
23d, he would resign and join some other regiment, the Cap- 
tain in good faith repaired to the headquarters of the com- 
mand at Jefi:erson City to resign his commission and join 
some other regiment. General Ulysses S. Grant happened 
to be present, and in his usual kindly way asked for and the 
Captain explained all the facts, concluding with the state- 
ment that Adjutant Cosgrove was in command. After listen- 
ing in silence to his recital, Grant's eyes twinkled a little as he 
(enquired: "Who is your ranking captain?" The Captain 
answered : "I am, sir." "Then," said Grant, " will you please 
tell me how it comes that your adjutant, who is only a first 
lieutenant, commands the regiment;-"' Adams hesitated and 
blushed, but at last said: "1 don't know, sir, how it happens, 
e.xcept tliat he rides on horseback and 1 go along on foot with 
the boys." With his quiet smile. Grant then said: "My 
boy, by virtue ot your rank, you are now in command of the 
23d Illinois." In telling me about this early incident, the 
Captain said: "You should have seen me salute and march 
straight from headquarters to my command, and the first thing 
I did there was to write an order to Adjutant Cosgiove to 
report to me at once under close arrest, and this I signed: 
'Robert Adams, Jr., Captain commanding Regiment.'" 

This same Captain Adams, now a distinguished Kansas 
City lawyer, was my judge-advocate general for a time in 
the war, and 1 recall now the uay in 1863 when he brought 



204 Recollections 

his bride to our headquarters at Clarksburg. She was a beauti- 
ful young lady, good and kind to the boys, who worslupped 
her, and until the silver cord was loosened and their golden 
bowl was broken, only a few years ago, between the Captain 
and his good wife, there always existed a most beautiful and 
genial comradeship, and to each other they remained "Joe" 
and "Bob," as in the days of their youth. 

R0J3ERT C. ScHENCK, Dayton, Ohio. Back before the 
war Schenck represented his home district in Congress and 
also served as a foreign minister ; but with the rank of a major- 
general of volunteers, and his headquarters at Baltimore, along 
an 1863 he was in command of the 8th Corps of the Army. 
Then he was sent to Congress again, and in 1871 President 
Grant sent him as our minister to England. He did well in 
everything in both civil and military life ; but while represent- 
ing this country at the Court of St. James, in an evil hour 
for liim, he happened to instruct a choice few of the British 
nobility in the mysteries of that seductive American game at 
cards here known as poker. It is said that some of the Britons 
were so impressed with the game that they caused his man- 
uscript on the rules of poker to be printed for private circu- 
lation ; but, as often happens, the opposition got hold of a copy 
of this pamphlet, and for years afterward fieiceiy lambasted 
and lampooned the good General, and then dubbed him "Poker 
Bob." The last I heard of him on the other side of the waters, 
he was reported dying of Bright's disease, and soon dropped 
from sight. 

About a dozen years ago, I was seated at the dinner-table 
at Willard's in Washington with an elderly gentleman, with 
full, white hair and whiskers, clear eyes, ruddy face, and in ap- 
parently perfect health. In his manner, tone, and face there 
was something so strangely familiar to me that, addressing 



^ Soldier Friends 2C5 

him, I said: "Pardon me. sir, but are you not General Robert 
C. Schenck?" He courteously admitted that he was. I intro- 
duced myself, and his evident satisfaction upon being recog- 
nized by one of his war-time "boys" is still a treasured mem- 
ory. In the many conversations which followed, he distinct- 
ly recalled the old days and the officers of the war from Grant 
down ; he reviewed his old corps, divisions, brigades, regiments, 
and a few companies ; but of course did not recollect me as 
one of his pri\ate soldiers. Once I referred to the news- 
paper accounts of his Ion/;, serious illness, and congratulat- 
ed him upon his complete restoration to health, when the old 
General said; "Yes, sir. I was very ill for a long time; 
and to-day attribute my complete recovery to a remedy sug- 
gested by a German physician within that time; for in over 
two years not a thing ever went into my stomach except ripe 
tomatoes and buttermilk." 

Jo O. Shelby, Adrian, Missouri, was born at Lexington, 
Kentucky, in 1830, of a long line of distinguished ancestors 
on both sides of his house. In boyhood there he was the play- 
fellov/ of his cousins, B. Gratz Brown and Frank P. Blair, all 
descended from a great lawyer named Benjamin Gratz, who 
was a contemporary and at the bar quite the equal of the great 
Henry Clay. Each of the three cousins named came to this 
State and in the Civil War attained unique national distinction : 
Shelby as a commander of Southern forces and later a U. S. 
marshal; Blair as a soldier and U. S. senator; and Brown 
as a U. S. senator and later Governor of Missouri. So, long 
years before either was called hence, the world came to know 
each. 

Al! these men became prominent factors in the campaign 
of i860, v/hen the total presidential vote of Missouri, the State 
of their adoption, aggregated 165,518. Then in the year fol- 



206 Recollections 

lowing, the Big War commenced. Brown and Blair stood by 
the Union, while Shelby went South. The passage of the. 
Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854 and the subsequent troubles 
along the border had made nearly every Missourian a fight- 
er. So when the war came on, Missouri sent into the Union 
Army over 109,000 and into the Confederate Army over 
90,000, and at all times kept its quota full in the two contend- 
ing armies, and that, too, without a draft, which was ordered 
and enforced on both sides in all other States. This aggregate 
exceeds our total vote of i860, but this is accounted for by 
the further fact that the Civil War was fought by boys. Out 
of the 2,800,000 in our Army, more than 2,000,000 were under 
the age of twenty-one years at the date of their enlistment. 
Upon this subject I once gave these statistics and added: 
"Such is the proud fightmg record of Missouri in the Civil 
War — a record without precedent or parallel in the history 
pf the world." After completing his academic course at 
Transylvania University in Kentucky and at a Philadelphia 
college, Shelby came to Lafayette County, Missouri, in 1849,. 
participated in the border troubles of 1854 to i860, and at 
the outset promptly entered the Southern Army in 1861. He 
had no military education, but had sense, scholarship, enthu- 
siasm, courage, dash, and these attributes made him a natural 
soldier, a great leader of men. After engaging with his com- 
mand in nearly every battle in the West, from Wilson Creek,. 
Lexington, and Pea Ridge, down to the last battle in this de- 
partment. General Shelby refused to surrender his command, 
and with his men marched across the frontiei and into Old 
Mexico to sustam the dying cause of Emperor Maximilian. 
He there tendered his sword and command to that ill-fated 
prince, but Maximilian perhaps then saw the end, and the gen- 
erous offer was declined. Soon after this and in 1867 the 



Soldier Friends 207 

Emperor was shot to death at Qucretaro, his unfortunate Em- 
press, Carlotta, was sent to a mad-house, while Shelby and his 
men one by one returned to the States. Throughout the war 
that prince of the pen. the late Major John N. Edwards, whom 
I knew well as a loving and lovable character, was Shelby's 
adjutant. An account of Shelby's Army career came from 
the gifted Edwards many years ago, and is still celebrated 
throughout the West and South as a most interesting book, un- 
der the title of ''Slielby's Expedition to Mexico." 

True soldier as he was, after his return from Alexico, no 
one for a moment doubted the intense loyalty and earnest 
devotion of General Shelby to the constitution and flag of 
his country. While he was the U. S. ^Marshal for this dis- 
trict, it became his duty to protect some railroad property 
during a strike, and of course he did it. A personal and 
political friend of his, who was then Governor of Missouri, 
entered his solemn protest to this action and closed by de- 
manding to be informed why he did so. This demand 
aroused the fighting blood of General Shelby. His first written 
answer was couched in the surt language of the soldier and 
read: "Go to hell:" but on reflection he modified this some- 
what and wired back to the Governor this reply: "I am act- 
ing under the orders of Uncle Sam ; ask him." 

Many old Confederate soldiers came out to hear my ad- 
dress on "Egyptian and American Slavery, a comparison; 
Aloses and Lincoln, a parallel," on Lincoln's birthday, February 
12. 1897 (see Appendix). In going to the hall that night a 
friend told me that my friend Shelby was then reported dy- 
ing at his home down in Bates County. So in opening my 
talk I had something to say to my ex-Confederate friends pres- 
ent, and then paid a tribute to General Shelby. 



208 Recollections 

Shelby died next morning, and I feel that no apology is 
needed for here printing this letter to his widow : 

''Bereaved Madam: — Standing alone within the darker 
shadows of the people's grief, as a private soldier who fol- 
lowed the Stars and Stripes, I desire to tender to the wife and 
children of the most gallant and courtly of the many distin- 
guished officers who followed the Stars and Bars whom I have 
known, my earnest, heartfelt sympathy and tenderest con- 
dolence. I also thank you for the honor you have done me 
in selecting me as one of the honorary pall-bearers for your 
distinguished dead. 

" 'He is not dead, but sleepeth.' As long as those who 
knew and loved General Jo Shelby live, so long will he live 
in their memories and affections, and when they are gone, 
will survive in the memories of their descendants. So long 
as the English language is written, that long will the story of 
our great war be printed and read. Without the name of Jo O. 
Shelby that history cannot be written or read, for he is in 
and a conspicuous figure of that war. True, the lion heart 
has ceased to beat ; the glorious eyes that flashed as those of 
the eagle upon the field of battle, that were happy as a laugh- 
ing girl's in merriment, and melted to tears over the sorrows 
of the poor and oppressed, are now closed in death. True, 
the body now lies cold before us, but the heroic soul of Jo 
Shelby lives! So loyal was he to cause and commander; so 
imbued and inspired with the genius of military spirit ; so active 
and eager, that when his spirit left the clay and took its place 
in that camp beyond the river where white-winged Peace for- 
ever reigns, and battle-flags are forever furled, the soldier-soul 
sought out the commander and asked the favor of an imme- 
diate assignment to duty. If bewildered by the sudden flight, 
he may have sought the Stars and Bars ; but if calm and col- 
lected as I have known him, he sought the old Stars and 
Stripes. So while the great chieftain as we knew him will be 
known no more, yet I cannot believe that General Jo Shelby is 
dead. Of all the distinguished Missourians who knew and 
loved your soldier-knight, I have known but one who could 
have done full and complete justice to his memory — and Major 
John N. Edwards is dead." 

After the General's funeral, I said this of him in the public 
prints of tlie day: 



Soldier Friends 209 

"During the Civil War I served as a Union soldier in the 
Eastern Army and had heard but little of General Shelby un- 
til, at the close of that mighty struggle, I came west and lo- 
cated at Gallatin, j\Io. There one night, soon after my ar- 
rival, I heard one of his old troopers singing 'Shelby's Mule.' 
The memory of the rare old days of danger, daring, and glory, 
aided and abetted by sundry drinks of good old whisky, caused 
this rough-rider to throw his whole soul into that song with 
most charming abandon and enthusiasm, and I shall never 
forget the voice nor the manner of the man as he roared out 
the chorus of the song in these words: 

"'Hi, boys! make a noise; 

The Yankees are afraid; 
The river 's up, Hell 's to pay, 
Shelby 's on a raid.' 

"In cold type it will not appear startling, but to hear one 
of Shelby's men sing it under such auspices, any old soldier 
would halt and listen. 

"In my soUlier days I had done some tall marching, both 
after and before Jackson, Imboden, Mosby, Jenkins, and other 
Confederate commanders in Virginia ; had been startled by 
their bugle-calls, alarmed by the 'Rebel yell,' and had heard 
their songs of defiance and triumph, but never heard any- 
thing like 'Shelby's Mule.' 

"Later on, the more familiar I became with the war his- 
tory of Missouri, as well as with the character and achieve- 
ments of Shelby, the more I desired to meet and know the 
gallant soldier who could inspire in his men such loving 
devotion and heroism, and who, as the star, had played such 
a conspicuous part in war's wild romance and tragedy on the 
border. 

"With all its trials, hardships, and dangers, there is to the 
soldier a charm and fascination about war that is absolutely 
unknown to all other walks of life. The soldier who has 
been through a war readily understands the attributes of that 
commander whose 'boys,' with smiles on their faces, with ring- 
ing and endiusiastic cheers, will follow him into the very jaws 
of death and storm the portals of hell if need be, and I think 
that no soldier ever knew him without recognizing such a 
commander in b-rilliant, dashing, sagacious, and gloriously 
courageous Jo Shelby. 



210 Recollections 

"My desire to see and know the man was not gratified 
until \vc met at the Democratic National Convention at St. 
Louis in 1876, where I happened to be present at the first meet- 
ing between, and personally introduced, Shelby and Fitzhugh 
Lee. Each had been a fighter, a general, a leader of men, 
and each had been the idol of the men who followed him to 
victory or death beneath the Stars and Bars. But great as 
they were in camp and march and field, to me it seemed that 
in fair, gallant, courtly, and chivalric speech, as well as in 
their splendid interchange of soldierly courtesies, neither could 
have found any rival save in the other. Two valiant knights 
had just stepped out of the dim and distant past, met in the 
then present, and each at once recognized in the other a soldier 
and a gentleman, chivalrous, tender, tried, and true. 

"From that time on to the closing scene I knew Shelby 
intimately. He was noble, manly, generously loving and lov- 
able, with a kindliness and charm of manner seldom seen. Dar- 
ing, dashing, terrible even as he may have been as a stern com- 
mander leading the wild charge to victory or death, yet in 
the charmed circle of home, or surrounded by his fellows, 
his heart was as that of a little child. An intense Southern 
partisan in war, with Shelby, as with all true soldiers, that war 
closed at Appomattox, its red fires became ashes by the terms 
between Grant and Lee, and then Shelby became so loyal to 
the Government of the United States that from the hour he 
buried the Confederate flag in the turbid waters of the Rio 
Grande, as he was going to Old Mexico from his native land 
on the fourth day of July, 1865, up to the hour of his death, 
Jo Shelby would as gladly have laid down his life for the Stars 
and Stripes as during the four years of war he would have 
laid it down for the Stars and Bars. 

"When General Jo Shelby was mustered out of life in 
February, 1897; when his sj)lendid soldier soul laid aside the 
body as a uniform, no more fitting — I was one of his pall- 
bearers, and on the other side of the casket, just opposite to 
me. was that rugged, one-armed Confederate veteran. Colonel 
Elijah Gates, of St. Joseph. Bearing our burden with tender 
loving hands out to Forest Hill cemetery, this grizzled and gray 
old Confederate colonel, who had kept step to "Dixie," anti 
I, who had kept step to the music of the Union, again kept step, 
but this time together and to the "Dead March"; and together 
we mingled our tears over the casket between us, for it con- 



Soldier Friends 211 

tained all that was mortal of the dead soldier and friend whom 
in life we knew and loved so well." 

John H Showalter, Fremont, Nebraska; This name is 
well along in my alphabetical list, is not so familiar to the 
public as are the names of many of my military heroes, but 
he was my first Captain in 1861 and the next year was my 
Major. That a better disciplinarian, abler commander, more 
fearless soldier never wore the blue, is not so much to my 
present purpose as is the other fact that I want to talk a little 
on paper anyway and tell you of my experiences with just a 
few of "Showalter's boys," of our border-land troubles, and of 
those earlier days of war. With brave, sagacious officers in 
command, American soldiers will fight anything, anywhere. 
But when 1 speak of war, I refer to the big war of '61-5, and 
do not mean to underrate the men engaged in any subsequent 
conflict. 

At the mere thought of our war, though, whether he wore 
the blue or the gray then, every veteran is liable to stop and 
think. The longer he reflects upon the days of his youth and 
his glory, the firmer becomes his conviction that, in some re- 
spects, he is not unlike old Lexington, the greatest horse of 
hib day and the one which every Kentuckian worshipped. 
When long past all his usefulness and old and blind, Lexing- 
ton was shown in the ring once more at the great Derby races, 
where he had won immortal fame. He was there being led 
around the inner track by a negro attendant; the band played 
"My Old Kentucky Home" wdiile all the people cheered both 
horse and air. When he was directly opposite the grand-stand, 
the gong was rung and the starter shouted, "Go!" Then it 
was that old Lexington, forgetting his years, infirmities, and 
blindness, thrice dashed around the ring as of yore, dragging 
his black attendant along with him, while all Kentucky cheered 



212 RecollectioxN's 

and wept. So, at the sound of the once-familiar command, the 
squeal of the fife, the rattle of the drum, or the bugle-call, 
the old soldier stands at "attention," in the tinkling bell of 
memory hears and answers the call, catches the step, and 
marches along to the music, in fancy, after all, only a boy 
again. From life's rosy morning until its golden sunset, the 
once soldier remains a "boy." While halting in his slow march 
to the bivouac of the dead to rest and dream and maybe sleep 
in the quiet hush of the wayside, the failing eye and faltering 
step of the veteran admonish him that the great column of 
human progress is ever moving onward — he is alone — the army 
is moving — has jiassed ! 

Showalter (no one ever dared to address him that way 
back in war-times) was born many years before I was, is 
no longer young, and to note his erect form and light step 
now, one wouldn't think he was verging on his fourscore years, 
but he is. The lowering war-cloud of early spring of 1861 
found him as the first lieutenant of the Marion Guards. 
He was loyal to the old flag, but Captain William P. Thomp- 
son, the commander of that company, along with most of its 
members, espoused the Southern (or, as they called it, "the 
State rights") side of the impending controversy and were 
Secessionists. So, while the Captain was temporarily absent, 
one fine Saturday evening, Showalter marched this company 
out into a grove near by, and, as he had the lawful right and 
power to do under the statutes of the commonwealth ot Vir- 
ginia, mustered the whole command out of the service. This 
was at Fairmont, the seat of justice of Marion County, in 
what is now West V^irginia. The State (really the Confed- 
erate) government held ihe complete military possession of 
our county until late in May of that year. Flags new and 
strange floated in the soft Southern breeze everywhere, and 



Soldier Friends 213 

it was only a few of the young and reckless who dared to wear, 
even concealed from the public gaze under lapels of coat or 
vest, miniature representations of the old Stars and Stripes. 
With plumes and banners gay, most of my boyhood friends, 
including my elder brother, promptly enlisted to fight in the 
war for the South, and Southern soldiers could be seen every- 
where marching, counter-marching, drilling, shouting, and 
singing. 

The first cannon-shot of our great Civil War was fired 
on Fort Sumter, in the harbor at Charleston, South Caro- 
lina, on the morning of April 12, 1861. America was startled, 
dazed, and shocked. The world knows the final results. But 
none save those who then lived upon the border line can ever 
understand or appreciate the force and effect which that act 
there had. All was doubt, unrest, dread, unceitdint) theie. 
The peace-loving people then chose the side upon which like 
a stone wall each was to stand thereafter. The good house- 
wife forgot to spin ; the farmer, professional man, merchant, 
workman, all ceased theii efforts ; the world stood still ; war, 
nothing but war, was talked of or thought about. At last, 
under General McClellan, the Union forces came to the "Burnt 
Bridges," on the B. & O. Railroad, destroyed by the oppo- 
sition nearby our home. When this glad news came, I recall 
now just where I lay beneath the shade of a chestnut tree 
near the house, how I arose and tried to give three cheers 
for tlie Union, and how the sound of my voice died away — I 
broke down and crietl like a child. 

Through all this trouble, the quiet, gallant, dapper Sho- 
walter remained firm, but as alert as a terrier. Then he 
soon procured a recruiting commission from some unknown 
authority and enlisted his company, and in July, 1861, I became 
one of .his "boys." The loyal ladies of Fairmont presented 



214 Recollections 

us with a heavy and beautiful silk iiag inscribed with the ring- 
ing words, "Be Strong, Be Brave, Be True." We learned 
to sleep on the soft side of the earth, drill, and become soldiers 
at Camp Carlisle, on the Island at Wheeling. This was only 
seventy miles from home, but at the age of sixteen I had never 
before been out of my native county, and while failing to 
express his happy thought in like language, yet I felt about 
that long journey as did one of our farm-hands who was later 
drafted and sent to the same camp, only to be rejected, for 
upon his return home he said to father : "I '11 tell you what, 
Mr. McDougal, if this world is as big the other way as it is 
towards Wheeling, it 's a whopper !" Showalter's men had 
the good or bad fortune to be out of the historic battles 
of the war, and throughout the trouble, ^as a veteran once 
said, "jist ht" ; yet a large volume would not contain the per- 
sonal experiences of old Company A, in the four-years war. 
So only a few of the many things that occurred to one private 
soldier of that company are here reproduced. 

Early in September, 1861, Showalter took his company on 
a scouting expedition in our home county up near Worth- 
ington. The scheme was to fight a force of the enemy. Our 
command reached the scene a little after midnight, and all 
knew there was a Confederate block-house just over and pro- 
tecting the gap in the hills. Later on an officer would have 
been court-martialed and dismissed from the service for the 
commands there given , but all were young in war then and 
everything went. When mustered in, I was No. 17 in the 
rear rank, and how 1 happened to be in front that night no 
one ever thought to inquire; but there I was. Our officers 
conceived the plan of capturing that block-house, filled with liv- 
ing, bieathing, but then sleeping "Johnnies." So we deployed 
around It in single file, and at the command "Halt," given in 



Soldier Friends 215 

a whisper, the rear man stopped and looked and listened, with 
fixed bayonet and gun ready to fire. This alone waS enough 
to scare a boy to death, and there is one I know of that the 
night came near finishing. When this block-house was thus 
surrounded, I was the last man left with the commanding officer 
when we reached the door, and the order was given me, still in 
a whisper, "Go in." With the sense, strength, and sand of ma- 
turer years, I don't now know what might have happened. To 
obey my superior meant sure death. I was not looking for 
that, and wanted to run. Home and friends passed in won- 
drously rapid review. The pride of a soldier and obedience to 
orders prevailed, and I entered. Black cats were never so dark 
as the inside of that block-house. A feather would have 
knocked me down, a cry of "Boo !" would have killed me. No 
one opposing. I grew brave and strong and lustily punched 
around with my bayonet. The enemy had fled ; not a soul was 
in that block-house. In the congratulations of comrades, it was 
fortunate for me that darkness hid my still pale face and quak- 
ing knees. The "boys'" never knew how near Company A then 
was to its first failure, and I never told them. 

On January i, 1862, our command was transported in 
cattle cars by the B. & O. Railroad over the Alleghany Moun- 
tains from Grafton to New Creek. Lordy, how cold it was 
and how the wind whistled on the summit! Through the 
rain and sleet and snow we marched the next day over to 
Greenland Gap on the South Branch of the Potomac, twenty- 
three miles. Tired, hungry, cold, we were ascending a moun- 
tain road that afternoon, when from the opposite side a Union 
woman displayed at a gable-window a tiny silken flag of our 
country. Led by Captain showalter, the boys lustily cheered 
this unexpected sight in the enemy's country until the old woods 
rang again with our shouts, and then for miles all marched 



210 Recollections 

along as if on dress parade. That little flag represented the 
honor, majesty, and glory of our country and the boys were 
glad and gay again. At nightfall we reached and were quar- 
tered in the old Dunkard church at the upper end of the Gap. 
The "chinkin' and dobbin' " had fallen away and a yearling 
calf could have been thrown through its openings, but the 
big wood fires were warming and cheerful. In the advance, 
guard on the march there, I had not felt myself, but never sus- 
pected the cause until the next day the boys carried me on 
a cot down the Gap and placed me in the second story of a 
white frame house just below the church, in charge of Brink- 
ley Snodgrass, of our company, as my nurse — I had measles. 
For days they kept me there and that disease, so fatal to many 
soldiers, nearly killed me. My only nourishment was warm 
rye whiskey, fresh from the still, and from that day to this 
J have never taken kindly to old rye, although other brands 
have not been barred. The day before our command left the 
the Gap, a young lady sent me a cherry pie, and that was the 
first and only thing given me there that tasted like anything. 
When good old Brinkley had gotten the measles "out" and 
my condition demanded the most careful nursing, one early 
morning I heard a courier on horseback dash past our house 
on the National Pike and up to the church. My eyes were 
bandaged ; I saw nothing ; but told my nurse there was music 
in the air on some account. We heard the boys breaking 
camp, and just then a messenger rushed into the room and 
said: "Get ready at once for a forced march back to New 
Creek." "Stonewall" Jackson, with seventeen thousand Con- 
federate troops, had come onto the South Branch at Romney, 
and by sending a detachment twelve miles, where we had to 
march eighteen miles, might have cut us ofif and captured 
our entire command. That caused the rush. Well, as the 



Soldier Friends 217 

boys were marching by, I was carried out and loaded into a 
farm-wagon, and we fell into the rear. Soon it began to rain, 
then sleet and snow, and with blankets and his own broad 
back Brinkley shielded me from the storm that day. I recol- 
lect every turn in the road, ill as I was, until we turned to 
the left and stopped for the night at the Reese plantation, 
within our lines at New Creek. From that hour the world 
was dark; I was delirious. When I became conscious, Sho- 
walter had placed me in a liotel in the town, and within a 
tew days more sent me home to Marion Couuty He and 
everybody else thought I would die ; but I was back again with 
the boys early in March, and here I am to-day. Out of 
this Greenland Gap experience arose many incidents, some of 
which are worth mention : 

Probably no man in the Army of the Upper Potomac had 
as good a nose for whiskey as old Hall Fleming of our com- 
pany. No matter whether we were in camp in the mountains, 
tor on the march, or in imminent danger from the enemy, 
Hall smelled "red licker" from afar, and got it. He and two 
of the other boys stole out of the church past the guard at 
the Gap one night, went to a mountain still-house, and after 
amply supplying the inner man, started back to camp with a 
jug full of the needful. In the darkness, or other confusion, 
they hid this jug in the grapevines covering a stone fence, 
but could never locate the place. To myself and other good 
friends they often bewailed this loss, for the liquor was good. 
But a friend of theirs, John J. Chisler, of Fairmont, was shoot- 
ing deer about the Gap only a few years ago and accidentally 
discovered and (I trust) utilized the remaining contents of 
that long-lost jug. It must have been nectar for the gods. 

About ten years ago, I was taking depositions in the 
office of my lawyer friend, Silas H. Corn, at Cameron, Mis- 



218 Recollections 

souri. He had served his country as a soldier about Green- 
land Gap, and I was teUing him of my serious illness there 
and. among many other incidents, about the girl that sent 
me that cherry pie. "No, I cannot recall her name now," I 
said ; "but it was Tabb, or Babb, or something like that, and 
Brinkley told me she lived just at the lower end of the Gap." 
Business over, I accepted his courteous invitation to dinner, 
and was there introduced to his good wife. When a girl, 
she had lived with her people just below the Gap ; her maiden 
name was Miss Babb, and she proved to be the young lady 
who had sent me that cherry pie. 

In 1880 I spent several months with my wife and chil- 
dren in the Alleghanies and, among other places, at Green- 
land Gap, where we were the guests of Adam Michael. He 
was the Union man who had hauled me in his wagon over to 
New Creek in'62, and seemed to recollect everything pertain- 
ing to the war. The house in which I lay sick was still stand- 
ing, but the old church was gone, burned later in the war. One 
Sunday we went past its site up the road to see the deer in 
their park and pay our respects to our old Unionist friend, 
Mr. Idleman. This good old Dunkard was then blind and on 
crutches. After a general talk on war-times, Mr Michaels 
inquired : "Do you remember, Mr. Idleman, the first sick 
Union soldier we then had here at the Gap?" The sightless 
eyes moistened as the patriarch replied : "Yes, indeed, very 
well ; he had measles down at Captain Schell's ; he was very 
sick the day you drove away with him ; I never saw or heard 
of him again, and suppose the poor boy died soon after he 
left." "On the contrary," said Mr. Michaels, "that boy did 
not die; he is back in this country with his family now, re- 
visiting the old scenes, and the fact is that at this minute he 
stands before you." The crutches were thrown aside; the 



Soldier Friends 219 

withered arms of the old man were extended as he arose, and 
tears were in his unseeing eyes and tremulous voice as he 
simply said, "Come to me." All others silently left the room. 

In March, 1862, two brothers named Barker, who belonged 
to the Confederate forces, captured a member of our com- 
pany, named George W. Fleming, at his home near Texas, 
in my native county, and twice hung him up by the neck, but 
finally got drunk, and George escaped them, only to die from 
the shock. 

When this news reached our camp at Fairmont, a squad 
of about twenty of us, under the command of Sergeant Baylis, 
were sent out to arrest the faction that captured our comrade ; 
we marched up Tygart's Valley to the scene of the capt- 
ure and in that neighborhood made the two Barkers prisoners 
of war. In charge of guards, they were started on foot to our 
camp, but were found dead at the side of the B. & O. Rail- 
road tracks. The guards reported that the Barkers had started 
to run and escape, when they were shot and killed ; but this 
I always doubted, and still think they were probably murdered 
in cold blood. 

While at Barker's house on the bluffs, we saw a number 
of the enemy emerge from a house on the opposite side of the 
river and run into a nearby ravine en route to the main com- 
mand beyond the mountain. One Confederate, more bold 
or with less brains than his comrades, ran straight up the hill- 
side in plain view. Our command was drawn up in line and 
all fired at this fleeing "Johnny" except myself. My Minie 
musket only snapped. I put on a fresh cap, raised the sights 
of my gun to 1, 003 yards, and fired. The man was by this 
time nearly half a mile away, across the river, and of course 
it was only a chance shot, but at the crack of the gun the man 
fell and rolled down the hillside in the mud — dead, all thought. 



220 Recollections 

We improvised a raft, crossed Tygart's Valley River, ate our 
flitch and hard tack, and on our way over the mountain looked 
for the dead Confederate soldier in vain. We saw in the mud 
where he hail fallen and struggled, and then by his tracks 
and blood followed his trail up to the fence by the woods; 
here, in the heavy rain, dead leaves, and timber, all trace of 
the fellow was lost, and we marched on to a cabin over the 
range. The elderly woman in charge gave ready permission 
to search the house, but said her daughter was very ill in bed, 
and only made the modest request that the search be conducted 
quietly for that reason. All this was done. On the bed we 
saw a very pale young mountain woman, as all supposed, and 
soon went on. In the little skirmish which followed the next 
day a Southern soldier, who cheered for his cause and tor 
JefiF Davis, was killed. His name was George Cease and he 
had beea a blacksmith at Boothsville. Then another Southern 
ranger, named Ashcraft, was shot and killed, and after this 
we returned to camp by the way of Benton's Ferry. After 
the war and in the spring of 1866, a man with a bad limp 
came to me at Fairmont and told me he had lately learned 
that my shot from across Tygart's Valley River had broken 
his hip in March, 1862 ; that for an hour or more he feared 
his wouncl was fatal; and that he finally managed to cross 
the hill, and that he was in fact the soldier who was then dis- 
guised as "the sick daughter" in that cabin over the brow of 
the mountain. 

In May, 1862, on the Kanawha campaign and while our 
headquarters were at Roane Court House in Virginia, a lot 
of us were on scout under command of Captain Myers, of the 
nth West Virginia Infantry. For three days, on corn meal 
and water alone, we had marched and skirmished and swore. 
After dark one night, we thrice attempted to scale a mountain 



Soldier Friends 221 

pass, but could not get through to attack the enemy in the 
morning, on account of the trees and brush which they had 
placed in our way. The night had grown desperately cold, but 
we dared not make a fire, for that was against orders and we 
were in the enemy's country. Hungry, cold, tired, discouraged, 
about midnight we lay down for a little rest on the banks of 
the Kanawha, covered only by overhanging clouds and rubber 
poncho tent blankets. The river was high and the gurgle and 
swish of its waters, the stillness of that dark, dismal night, are 
with me now. For once in my life, there was no ray of light 
in that night, and to me the whole world looked black. 
"Spooning" (as we had often to do then) with Corporal Bog- 
gess, and colder than charity, I whispered this to him: ''Frank, 
if I were at home and had as good a place to sleep in as my 
dog has to-night. I 'd stay there and the Union might go to 
hell." In his quiet way, old Frank chuckled and said : 
"Never mind, my boy; it will probably be warmer for all of us 
tomorrow." And it was, for early we crossed the mountain 
and before night had three sharp little fights. 

In 1893 1 wrote up a full account of the second of these, 
under the title of "The Story of Lys Morgan," and it then 
had wide publication. Lys was an old school-boy friend of 
mine and was a Confederate soldier in that battle. We wound- 
ed and captured him. And there, too, I am sorry to add, 
I shot and killed my only man, as far as I ever knew, of that 
war. But we met in battle. It was his life or mine, and I 
shot first. 

That in the wild tragedy of war the boys sometimes had 
a taste of comedy will appear from this further incident of 
the last fight of that Sunday: In our company we had one 
good, pious preacher. Corporal Morgan. He seemed very 
old to us then, but he must have been in his early forties, 



222 Recollections 

and before the war had spent his time in reading his Bible, 
preaching the gospel, and shooting game. He prided himself 
especially on the fact that he was a good shot ; but he was more^ 
for he was a good soldier and sometimes gave us a good ser- 
mon. As the youngest and probably worst boy of our com- 
pany, I had given this good man no end of mental worry, 
and he felt it his duty to warn me to flee the wrath to come 
and become generally a model man. Usually well toward the 
front, the afternoon found me among the stragglers at the 
rear of our party. As our command was marching around 
the brow of a mountain there suddenly came to my ears that 
::attle of musketry up in front which no soldier can ever for 
get, and, boy-like, I wildly rushed up and was soon in the thick 
of the fight. Even then the enemy had commenced slowly 
to fall back, and as I ran past I saw Corporal "Stevie" with 
a dead shot at a Confederate major, heard him out-swearing 
our army in Flanders, and at a glance saw why his musket 
would not fire — he only had it at half cock. Without stop- 
ping, I yelled to him to cock his gun, and on I went. Late that 
evening we halted for the night by the brink of the river and 
went into camp. Corporal "Stevie" hunted me up, took me 
aside, and said : "Henry, you overheard me use some mighty 
bad language at that last little fight we had back on the 
mountain." I answered: "That's all right, Corporal; under 
the same circumstances I would have said the same thing." 
"That 's all right," he said; but quickly added: "No, no, no, 
I don't mean that , but you would have said it. Now, I want ta 
make a bargain with you. You have not been the best boy in 
the company and I have often felt it my duty to reprove you, 
for I think a great dqal of you; but no matter what you say 
or do hereafter, I '11 not open my mouth about it, if you 'It 
promise not to mention while I live the bad things you heard 



Soldier Friends 223 

me say back in that fight." Of course I promised, and we 
shook hands on it, rolled up in our blankets, and slept. Until 
death mustered him out of life no word escaped me concerning 
his soldier-talk on the mountain, and the peace between us was 
most profound. Only a few years ago, in my office here, 
I received from his devoted son, who was also a war comrade, 
a telegraphic message which told the sad (yet to me pathetic) 
story in these words: "Father found dead in his bed this 
morning. The finger of God touched him and he slept." 

Long before he passed under the rod, every old soldier 
trusts that this little lapse of Corporal Morgan was forgiven, 
forgotten, and blotted out by a tear, as were similar words em- 
ployed by that other good man. Uncle Toby. When the bul- 
lets were buzzing, not many soldiers ever stopped to consider 
whether the words they were likely to utter were learned in 
the Sunday-school. Indeed, this conviction of the boys was 
once voiced by Sergeant Antonio RafTo, of my regiment, when 
in describing to me a little battle led by Captain Larkin Pier- 
point, of our Company E, he told me that the Captain swore 
dreadfully. I said : "Rafifo, your description of that fight is all 
right except in this respect: Captain Pierpoint is a Meth- 
odist class-leader at home and doesn't swear." With blazinj^ 
eyes, the doughty Sergeant exclaimed: "Dond't svear! dond't 
svear! how te hell coot he been a captain in a fight unt not 
svear?" This same Antonio Rafifo was reared as a singer in 
his native Tyrolean Alps, served through the Crimean War in 
one of the ten Italian regiments, came to America and became 
a student of the gallant Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth, entered 
our Army early in '6i ; and was the best drilled as well as the 
handsomest soldier in our regiment ; sang like a bird, had a 
musical voice a stranger would turn to hear again, was an 
cfificer in the 17th West Virginia Infantry after my muster- 



224 Recollections 

out, and is now a rich and retired old chap, Hving up at Seneca, 
Kan. From our war days up to 1906, I neither saw nor heard 
of my friend. Then I heard that an Antonio Rafifo hved near, 
and at once wrote him, describing his rank, company and reg- 
iment, and his personal appearance and uniform on the morn- 
ing he turned in his report at our headquarters late in 1863, 
and inquiring if he was indeed my old comrade. Soon after 
this a soldierly-looking old gentleman, with white hair and 
moustache, stepped into my office here and saluted. On the 
instant I exclaimed. "My old comrade, Antonio RafTo, by all the 
gods of war!" Our talk lagged at first, and the starting-point 
was hard to establish. We were like that German and Irish- 
man who served in the same company in the war and for the 
first time since its close met only a short while ago. Being a 
little the quicker, the Irish comrade finally inquired: "Say, 
Dutchie, phat iver become of that Irish sergeant of our com- 
pany, Pat O'Ruark, phat was kilt at Shiloh?" After smok- 
ing for a long while in silence, the German at last took his pipe 
from his mouth and slowly answered: "He vas still det al- 
retty." But by and by Rafifo and I blew all the dead ashes 
from the coals of the years, the old-timey camp-fire again 
blazed and smoked in the old way. Among other incidents, 
Raffo told me that he had lived near me ever since '66, and 
that for many years up at Seneca, at every soldiers' reunion or 
other gathering he there swung across the street, with a hand 
pointing down to his home, a long banner inscribed, "Free 
quarters and grub here for every comrade of 6th West Va. 
Inf.," and that in forty years I was the only man of our old 
regiment he had ever met. Then he and I fought it all over 
again, and again the war seemed real to at least two veterans. 
My own personal estimate may be too high, but it now seems 
probable that in the several millions of soldiers on both sides 



Soldier Friends 225 

engaged in our war, as many as half a dozen did not at least 
think "damit" in almost every fight; the others said it. 

In the summer of 1862 we were ordered from the Kana- 
wha country to Weston, Virginia, and there, at Bland's old 
Hotel, I was laid low for a few days with camp fever. My 
nurse was comrade John B. Tallman, who had come into 
Showalter's company at Grafton, in November, 1861, from 
the Alleghany Mountains up in Barber County, and who knew 
and performed every duty of a soldier without one murmur. 
He was not learned, did not know what fear meant, and was 
a natural-born nurse. Ofificers called to see me, but they em- 
barrassed John, who only yawned and cracked the joints of 
his fingers. He went west after the war, and I knew only that 
this great, good soul lived somewhere out in Kansas ; but while 
we had not met, yet neither had forgotten. In January, 1898, 
our eldest son, Harry, died at twenty-three. David did not 
worship Absalom more than I this son, and to me he was as 
perfect, yet without the faults of the king's favorite boy. Just 
before we laid him away out at Forest Hill Cemetery, I was 
alone in our parlor, for the last time, with all that was left of 
this fair and favored son. The portieres were drawn, the 
doors closed, and I was thinking of all the dear dead boy had 
been to me and of what he would have been, when there came 
a touch at my elbow. I looked around, and there stood old 
Tallman ! He took my proffered hand and. in his quiet, simple, 
mountain way, only said : "I saw by the paper that you were 
in trouble, and I come to you now just like I went to you in 
the war." 

While we were encamped up the river and across from 
the present Weston Lunatic Asylum, our scouts brought in 
the usual exaggerated report that the enemy, 4,000 cavalry 
with a battery of artillery under command of Ge-neral Albert 



226 Recollections 

G. Jenkins, was rapidly approaching our camp. The Confed- 
erates probably had 1,500 men, while our fighting command 
numbered about 400. With their usual bluster, the command- 
ing officer said : "Stand your ground ; fight till hell freezes 
over !" and we poor devils could only obey. We were under 
arms all night, and everybody looked for a great battle. The 
preparations for fight went on. Before daylight in the morn- 
ing, as I now recall it, of Sunday, September i, 1862, I was 
placed in command of the west end of one of those long cov- 
ered wooden bridges, frequent then in Virginia, with a small 
squad of men, and told to hold it. We barricaded our end 
of that bridge and watched and waited. At last, we heard the 
Confederate cavalry dashing up the main street of the town, 
heard the clatter of theiir horses' feet, the rattle of sabers and 
guns as a detachment of them swung around the old Bailey 
tavern and down toward our bridge. We heard everything, 
but saw nothing, for it was still dark. On they came, and the 
firing commenced. This was getting rapid and hot; but our 
men there were cool, collected, and thought of nothing but 
fighting it out until we could fill that bridge with dead and 
wounded horses and men. Personally, I never telt better; the 
men were doing splendidly and all was going just right. 
Without a moment's warning, however, an order came from 
oOr commander just then: "Cease firing and fall back to the 
hill-top west of the Asylum." In the twinkling of an eye, that 
order made an arrant coward of every man at the bridge. 
Just how it all happened I never knew, but I do know that of 
our squad I was the first man on the top of that hill ; and, to 
employ the wordsi of some other retreating soldier, the only 
reason T ran was because I couldn't fly. Lord, but I was 
scared stiff! Just as officers were re-forming our scattered 
command in the woods on the top of that hill, the early morn- 



Soldier FriExNds 227 

ing sun tipped its tallest forest trees, while our camp was 
enshrouded in the heavy fog which overhung like a pall all 
the valley. But from present danger we were safe there, and 
I breathed easier. The sound of bugle-calls and the tramp of 
their horses convinced us that the enemy were on every public 
road leading out of Weston; and from their shouts we knew 
they must be burning and destroying our abandoned camp. 
Darkness was below, but by this time we were in the broad 
sunlight of the hilltop, and I happened to stroll away from 
the boys, down into the blue grass of the open, heard bullets 
hit near me, but saw nothing, and was cursed back mto ranks 
by an officer. Then came the order to fall back to Clarksburg; 
twenty-three miles away. Right there on that retreat we did 
the one great stunt of our soldier lives in tall walking to Clarks- 
burg; but we made it before nightfall. Our losses in killed, 
wounded, and captured were trifling, those of the enemy even 
less, and it turned out later that General Jenkins only made 
that raid to secure recruits and liorses, and really cared but 
little for men. 

Only a few years ago, In traveling eastward on the B. & O. 
Railroad, a mild-mannered, genial- faced gentleman boarded 
our train at Clarksburg and happened lo hit alongside of me 
in the crowded Pullman. From the pleasant conversation 
which followed, I soon learned that he was a lawyer, always 
lived at Weston, and had been a major in the Confederate 
service in our little brush there in '62 ; while he, of course, 
found out that 1 was also there and on the other side. In 
relating many incidents of that .engagement, the Major said : 
"The most amusing memory of ihe war occurred there that 
morning. When you Yanks retreated 10 ihe top of the hill 
back of the Asylum, you all were in ihe bright sun, while we 
were in the fog at your camp. We could ^ee the sunlight 



228 Recollections 

flashing on your brass buttons and ba3'onets, but you could 
not see us. Well, sir, while we were raising the devil gener- 
ally and burning your camp, sir. a dam fool boy strayed off 
from your command and stood alone, gaping down tow^ard 
your camp in the foggy valley. \Ve fired at him singly and 
by platoons, but he stood there unconcerned for a long time, 
and finally rejoined your command just before you com- 
menced to retreat." Laughingly I replied: "You are right, 
sir, in all of these details, but you will pardon me, for 1 was 
that dam fool boy." 

Among the loi young Virgmians who enlisted under Cap- 
tain Showalter, was Charles D. Baylis. He was born and 
reared over in the Shenandoah \'alley, near White Post. Like 
myself and many others of that company, his people had beeu 
slave-holding planters and he was Southern in all else, save 
politics, while most of his people went South. His rare ge- 
niality, unfailing good humor, and devotion to country and 
flag were superb. With us the sole question was: Is the 
Union or the State supreme? Right or wrong, and how it 
all came about, are outside the question now ; but we decided 
for the Union early and fought it through. After the war, 
Baylis drifted westward, became a cattle king in the Black 
Bird Hills of Nebraska, there married an educated, sweet- 
faced lady member of the Omaha-Osage tribes of Indians, and 
died there in 1886. Since then I have often met, fished with, 
and been employed as a lawyer by his widow and their two 
sons, now down in Oklahoma, and only two years ago visited 
the grave of my old comrade in the cemetery up at Pender, 
Nebraska. 

The last Confederate raid through my native county was 
composed of cavalry under the command of General Jones. 
This force captured our county seat on April 29, 1863. Ser- 



Soldier Friends 229 

geant Baylis at that time happened to be in command of a 
squad of about 40 enlisted men of my company at the bridge 
which spans the Monongahela River a mile above Fairmont. 
Hearing of the near approach of the enemy, Sergeant Baylis 
added to his soldier command a large number of Home Guards 
and defended the strong position he had taken with such 
splendid skill and ability as to repulse every Confederate 
charge from early morning until late that afternoon. Mil- 
ton Welsh, who is now a prominent citizen of Kansas City, 
told me only the other day that in that Fairmont fight he 
was a cavalry captain in a Maryland regiment and there com- 
manded in three separate charges upon our position, only to 
fall back as often. In the afternoon, however, a Confed- 
erate battery was planted on the hill across the river, and, 
as it could easily rake our position, Sergeant Baylis knew the 
annihilation of his people must be the result and discreetly 
ran up the white flag. Noting the surrender, General Jones 
gave the curt order, "March the Yanks down to the Court 
House," and he and his staff officers galloped away. In half 
an hour after they were there seated at the counsel table, in 
command of his variously clad soldiers, home guards, militia- 
men, and citizens, Baylis marched into that temple of justice, 
saluted Jones, and formally surrendered for parole, when this 
colloquy ensued: "Who is in command of the Yankees?" 
inquired Jones. "I am, sir," answered Baylis. Glancing at 
the veteran's chevrons, but not believing his eyes. Jones, next 
asked, "What is your rank, sir?" And to this Baylis sa 
luted again and answered, "I am a sergeant, sir." General 
Jones looked the stalwart sol lier over frcm head to foot and 
then slowly said, "By God. sir. you ought to be a general !" 
I still have a copy of the roll of our old company set 
up and printed in a captured and abandoned newspaper office 



230 Recollections 

at Weston, Virginia, when we got there off the Kanawha cam- 
paign in July, '62. This work was then done by Joe Gehring 
and George Greiner, two bright printer boys of our company. 
Poor George was later killed in one of the battles around 
Winchester in the valley, but that might have happened to 
any of us, as we knew at enlistment. This roll is now yellow 
with the years, but we shared our beans, blankets, and hard 
tack with these boys and I am glad I kept it, worthless to oth- 
ers, priceless to me. I could to-day take it up and relate many 
a true story of every man there, from captain down to wagon- 
master, and each would be of interest to old soldiers; but 
who else would now read or understand it? No one, save 
a few mere wrecks strewn along the banks of the ever-broad- 
ening, deepening river of human life. But as a few of the 
old boys, and the descendants of many, are still living, in 
their memory I here reprint that roll; 

ROLL OF COMPANY A, SIXTH REGIMENT, VIR- 
GINIA INFANTRY VOLUNTEERS (UNION). 

Weston, Va., July 24, 1862. 

OFFICERS — COMMISSIONED. 

John Fisher, Captain. 

Joseph N. Pierpoint, ist Lieutenant. 

Jacob F. Greiner, 2d Lieutenant. 

officers — non-commissioned. 
Philorus B. Compston, Orderly Sergeant. 
duty sergeants. 
George D. Black, ist; Harmar F". Fleming, 3d; 
Jabez L. Hall, 2d; Charles D. Baylis, 4th. 

corporals. 
Stephen Morgan, ist; B. Frank Boggess, 5th; 

Benjamin F. Google, 2d; H. Thornton Fleming, 6th; 
Andrew J. Toothman. 3d; Ren. Sed. Pitzer, 7th; 
Isaac Moffat. 4th; Sidney W. Satterfield, 8th; 



Soldier Friends 



231 



Musicians:— y\aron Thorn, Fifer; 

James W. Showalter, Drummer. 
Wagoner: — VVesley Davis. 



PRIVATES. 



Bail. Benjamin P. 
Black, John L. 
Boyd. James. 
Brown, Richard P. 
Bunner, Presley. 
Carder, John. 
Carder. Thomas. 
Clark. George 
Coogle. John. 
Constable. William. 
Dawson. Alplieus. 
Detrovv. George. 
DoMney, Eli. 
Eyster, Charles C. 
Farrell, Daniel. 
Forel, Hial C. 
Fisher, Wesley. 
Fleming, Charles I. 
Fleming, George W. 
Fleming, John E. 
Fleming, Josiah W. 
Gehring, Joseph T. 
Griffin, William. 
Greiner. George O. 
Hawkins, Frederick. 
Hershberger, Joseph 
Hewett, Hiram. 
Hill, F. Marion. 
Hoult, Elijah H. 
Jones, Andrew. 
Jones, Sanford. 
Knight, F. Marion. 
Lambert. Joseph H. 
Lane. Albert G. 
Largent. George. 
Loudon. George W. 
Mallory, George K. 
Martin, Joseph A. 



McDougal, Henry C. 
McEl fresh, Theodore T. 
Megill, David F. - 
Mellor, Frank. 
Menear, William B. 
Morgan. Jeffrey J. 
Morgan, Oliver P. 
Powers, John T. 
Prichard, J. Newton. 
Prickett. Thornton T. 
Reynolds. Joel B. 
Satterfield. C. Frank. 
Schoudt. Jacob. 
Shahan. James. 
Shahan, Minor. 
Shearer. Francis M. 
Shearer. George E. ~ 
Shore. Raymond. 
Shroyer, Alexander 1. 
Sipe. David T. 
Snodgrass. Brinkley M. 
Stansberry. Justus H. 
Steele. Samuel. 
Sturm. J. Lee. 
Sultzer, Amaury De La, 
Thompson. James. 
Tallman, John B. 
Toothman, Eli B. 
Toothman. Waitman D. 
Turner, James W. 
Upton. James Riley. 
Vincent. Riley. 
Waldron, Patrick. 
Weatherwax. Edwin G. 
Wells. William D. 
Wilson. John R. 
Wilson. Nuzum S. 
Winesburg. Samuel 



232 Recollections 

Martin, Merrynian A. Wolford, James. 
Martin. Samuel L. Wright, Henry C. 

Yates, James K. P. 
Dp;ad:— Cornelius B. Carr, Joseph Cunningham, William 

Dodd, James Swisher, Marshall Yates. 
Discharged eor Disability: — Anthony C. Boggess, Robert 
Hughes, Eli Hawkins, James AlcCalister. 

Our company was enlisted at Fairmont, in Marion County. 
Virginia, in July, 1861, and mustered into the U. S. service 
"for three years or during the war" at Camp Carlisle, Wheel- 
ing (Island), Virginia, on August 6, 1861. 

OUR FIELD AND STAFF OFFICERS ARE: 

Colonel — Nathan Wilkinson. 
Liciilcnant-Coloncl — John F. Hoy. 
Major — John H. Showalter. 
Adjutant — Zenas Fish. 
Quartermaster — Wm. H. Adams. 
Surgeon — Erasmus D. Safford. 
Assistant Surgeon — John T. Wharton. 
Chaplain — ErEnezer Mathers. 

Our ancient negro friend, John Jasper, of Richmond, Vir- 
ginia, preached loud and long to convince mankind that "the 
sun do move" ; but the old soldier recognizes the controlling 
facts : that the world and the people in it will always keep on 
moving; that life is broader, better, longer than it once was; 
that while vanity or position often fathers the false assump- 
tion that he is still a governmental factor, yet that neither 
the old soldier nor any one else has ever really been a necessity 
to the Republic. No one individual, at any time, is ever essen- 
tial to any human government. Without him the wheels con- 
tinue to revolve and "the smoke goes up the chimney just the 
same." So it will be until, "with his right foot upon the sea, 
and his left foot on the earth," man's good angel proclaims 
that time shall be no more. But the veteran may still consoie 
himself in repeating this solar-plexus blow administered by an 



Soldier Friends 233 

oki comrade to a young chap vvhc twilled bitu on his age; 
"Yes, that 's so, but I 'd a damsite rather be a has-beener than 
a never-vvaser." The perversity of the old soldier is still very 
human in its cussedness ; he still feels impelled to do that 
which is forbidden; say to him, "Thou shalt not," and straiglu- 
way he rebels and does it. Maybe that 's why so few obey the 
commands of the decalogue. 

Looking back, too, it seems I knew not only every man in 
my own regiment, but many others as well. To be near most 
of them again. I now turn into and gaze upon graveyards, for 
only a few of us are left to march the weary rounds of earth. 
Maybe you never stop to think about it, and no blame attaches 
to you for that, the time is now so far away; but long service 
in actual war brings to the front or conceals every angle in 
the soldier, so that at muster-out the world may easily recog- 
nize either the cringing coward or manly man in every sur- 
vivor. The boy too good to sneeze out loud when he enlist- 
ed was liable to develop into the most expert chicken thief of 
his mess, while the meanest and lowest often became the best 
soldiers and later on the most carefully patriotic citizens. But 
I must tell you just this one more incident in the life of one 
of our Company A boys, and then I '11 quit and go at something 
else. This comrade is Benjamin Sedwick Pitzer. We were 
reared on adjoining farms and while boys attended the same 
schools; he became my superior officer during the war, for 
we enlisted in Showalter's company on the same day, he be- 
came a corporal, and since the war has lived on his farm out 
in Kansas, while I remained a private. In 1888 I had to 
lake depositions out in Colorado, and wrote old Sed that on 
returning I would stop at his place and we would again spend 
the Fourth of July together. He met me at the station and 
drove me to his home. His wife and daughters were devo- 



234 Recollections 

tion itself and gave me a royal good time, but he and I talked 
of the past and naturally arose late in the morning. That 
was July 4th and the day we two were to spend together in 
the woods nearby. I noticed that many things were out of 
I)lace and it was nearly noon when we left his house in the 
carriage, but never suspected anything. We passed two or 
three good camping-places in the timber and in vain I urged 
the stop and the talk. At last he drove me into a beautifully 
wooded grove in which were already many hundreds of people, 
and at its entrance a printed poster as big as a barn door an- 
nouncing tiieir great 4th of July picnic and myself as the orator 
of the day. Seeing that he had again tricked me, I said to 
him: "Now. look here, my boy, I never made a Fourth of 
July speech in my life, don't know how, am too old to learn 
now, and what 's more, by the holy Moses, I won't attempt it !" 
He saw that I was in earnest and told him the truth, but urged 
me to "make just a little talk anyway." His theory was that 
a lawyer had only to open his mouth and it would be filled 
with good things ; while mine is, to prepare, study, think, and 
then instruct as well as entertain. Still protesting that I would 
not make a speech, threatening to tell those people of all the 
mean and funny events of his life from his birth to that date 
if he dared to call me out, I finally agreed to make a short 
talk. Droves of people came in, the grove filled up, the crowd 
was called to order, and the Declaration of Independence read. 
Then the "orator of the day" was called for, and old Sed and 
I went together upon the platform. Frankly and fully I told 
them just how I had been entrapped and spent the first twenty 
minutes in describing, with many additions, all the cussedness 
of that boy, from his youth up. Mention of the day we cel- 
ebrate, and of the Revolution, and the Declaration, were all 
purposely omitted. But, to the delight of the crowd, my old 



Soldier Friends 235 

friend was then and there crucified in due and ancient form, 
and he had to take it all. Hundreds of old soldiers were in 
the audience, and after talking of country and flag and past 
days, I warmed up and repeated a true story of how, after a 
little skirmish we had away back in March, '62, I lay on the 
field one morning, so weak from loss of blood that I could not 
march with the boys and carry my gun and knapsack ; how 
a comrade first carried my accoutrements and helped me across 
swollen streams and mud-holes, and finally took up on his 
broad back and with a giant's strength carried me for miles and 
miles out of the ground of the enemy toward our own rendez- 
vous. By this time the audience w^as in tears and I was near 
it ; but knew the speech was great. When at last the name of 
that comrade was given as Benjamin Sedwick Pitzer, some 
old soldier cried aloud just back of me, and I broke down. 
For minutes I paced back and forth on that platform, trying 
in vain to pull myself together so that 1 could finish. But 
memory and emotions were too strong. I could not utter 
a word, and tears were coming. So I left the platform and 
walked away ofif and sat down in the shade of a tree to cry 
it out. There an arm was thrown over my shoulder in silence. 
As best I could, I looked around to see who was by my side. 
It was old Sed Pitzer, and he too was in tears. 

In the summer of 1862, Captain Showalter was promoted 
to be our major and became the commander of the regiment, 
for Lieutenant-Colonel John F. Hoy was then on staff duty 
and our colonel was in command of our brigade. John Fisher 
then became our captain, and Joseph N. Pierpoint and Jacob 
F. Greiner were our lieutenants. 

Four national holidays came and went during that war, 
and in three of these I was in the Army. In notes of my 
own personal reminiscences of the many red-letter 4th of 



236 Recollections 

Julys, written some years ago, I had a word to say of each of 
these four days, and here reprint these notes : 

"1861 : Celebration at P'armington on Baltimore & Ohio 
Railroad, four miles from home. The Big War was on. The 
Army post there was in command of Captain Dodd. Co. B. 3d 
Ohio Vol. Inf. Flags flying, drums beating, bugles sounding 
all day long. Captain Dodd and his men all college gradu- 
ates, scholars, and gentlemen. They made the speeches of the 
day — speeches breathing patriotism and loyalty to country and 
flag. A dance in the afternoon — the first regular, well-con- 
ducted dance I ever saw. (I enlisted on July 27, 1S61.) 

'■1862: Encamped at Spencer (Roane Court House), 
Virginia. Made a forced march through the enemy's countr\' 
from Spencer to Jackson Court House (distance 36 miles) 
en route with prisoners of war, captured in the then pending 
Kanawha campaign, to Ravenswood on the Ohio River. The 
hottest day and the longest, hardest march of the war for me. 
(My recollections of this day printed in full in Kansas City 
Journal, ]\Iay 30, 1893.) 

1863 : Xear Fairmont. Our company, with a compa- 
ny of Xew York engineers, stationed at Long Bridge, one 
mile above Fairmont (just made JVest \'irginia in June of that 
year), on the IMonongahela River, to protect the bridge 
(wrecked by the Confederates in the Jones raid of April 29, 
'63) as well as the surrounding loyalists. The celebration 
was just above the bridge on the opposite side (right bank^ of 
the river from our camp. The address of the day was made 
by the Rev. !Moses Tichenel. The only thing I recollect about 
it now is that when wide open tlie speaker's mouth was square! 
The afternoon was spent in swinging with the many pretty 
girls then and there in evidence, in a great swing that in its 
vast sweep carried us out over the beautiful ^lonongahela. 
The evening was spent in sailing on the river, with *^hese 
same girls, in a then famous boat made by these Xew York 
engineers. Upon the return of the entire party to camp at 



Soldier Friends 237 

about ten o'clock that night, the telegraphic dispatches brought 
us the first news of the results of the glorious victories of 
our armies at Gettysburg and \'icksburg and the camp went 
wild with joy. One of the impromptu speakers at that jolli- 
fication made a hit by asking: 'To whom shall we Grant the 
Mcadc of praise?' That speaker was Jacob F. Greiner. then 
the second lieutenant of my company — a brainy, scholarly 
German. 

"1864: Stationed at Clarksburg as the chief clerk of 
the brigade in the then Department of West \'irginia, com- 
manded by my colonel, Xathan Wilkinson, but at home 'for 
the Fourth' at Fairmont. Of all the many occurrences of that 
day. I now lecall but two things that left a vivid recollection: 
First, that I was in full uniform, resplendent with brass but- 
tons and gold braid and 'cut a wide swath" among the girls; 
and second, that my elder sister Margaret (Megilh severely 
rebuked me for neglecting an old sweetheart and devoting 
so much of my time to the new. They were both lovely girls — 
the old a blonde with most beautiful golden hair and perfect 
teeth ; the new a brunette with a charming laugli, superb eyes, 
and corkscrew curls hanging over her neck and down her 
back. Perhaps those curls won my youthful affections for 
the day, but I don't now recollect certainly."' 

The old 8th Corps later became a separate command un- 
der the designation of the Army of West \'irginia. and when 
Alajor-General George Crook was there in command. Captain 
William McKinley was a member of his staff'. When the So- 
ciety of that Army held its twenty-third annual reunion at Fair- 
mont, in September, 1900. Captain McKinley and I were both 
invited to deliver addresses, for we were members of that so- 
ciety and lawyers who were supposed to be somewhat accus- 
tomed "to speak in public on the stage." The real reasons no 
doubt were, that the Captain was then President McKinley and 
I a native of Marion County. Official business kept the Pres- 



238 Recollections 

ident at Washington, and I declined because of a previous 
engagement in Kentucky. But business ended much sooner 
than anticipated, and I reached Fairmont on the morning of 
the last day of that reunion, just to see the boys, and not to 
speak, for I had declined that honor and had prepared noth- 
ing. It hapj:)ened, however, that I was advertised for a speech 
that forenoon, and to follow that eloquent, impassioned orator, 
George W. Atkinson, who was then the Governor of West \'ir- 
ginia. Without a minute for thought or preparation and 
against my most solemn protest, the boys hustled me onto 
the platform before about 8,000 people. Back in war-times 
nothing kept me from running like a jackrabbit more than 
once, except my pride, and that attribute again kept me in the 
ranks at Fairmont. How, in the providence of God, I hap- 
pened to stumble on reminiscences of '61, as the chairman, 
my old friend and comrade, Captain Ellis A. Billingslea, was 
presenting me, I don't know to this day. After the stage 
fright wore away, I got my breath, and the stenographer's 
notes, just now received by mail, show I closed this way: 

"Comrades, did you ever reflect that for four long years 
we were actors? — actors in the grandest, greatest drama the 
history of the world has ever seen? We had half a conti- 
nent for a stage and played to a world. We were simply 
members of an army numbering nearly three millions of men 
in blue, and our destinies were moulded and guided by that 
eminent soldier, Ulysses S. Grant. (Applause.) The other 
forces, who wore the gray, were commanded by the scarce- 
ly less eminent soldier, Robert E. Lee. While the great re- 
splendent star which ruled over all, which guided and con- 
trolled our armies and generals alike, was Abraham Lincoln. 
(Cheers.) Whatever of success I have attained in Hfe, what- 
ever of glory, honor, or fortune I may have achieved, was 
attributable to the only period of all my life of which I am 



Soldier Friends 239 

proud to-day, and that is my service as a private soldier in 
the Union Army during the Civil War. 

"Now, comrades and friends, far be it from me upon an 
occasion like this to say aught that could be tortured into 
a political reference. I believe with the gifted Kentuckian, 
and I have practiced on the belief and do to-day, that my 
country is as high above my party as are the stars above the 
dust! (Cheers.) I believe the time is now at hand when 
every man who wore the blue and every man who wore ihe 
gray can stand under the light of heaven and say: 'No 
North, no South, no East, no West; but UNION now and 
forever!' (Applause.) I just see now over there my old 
friend, John Veach, of Dunkard ]\Iill Run. He has been 
my friend since I was a little bit of a boy, and I recollect one 
time I was left sitting near his house out on a rock one dark 
night while John and some other of the older boys went home 
with the girls ; and I was nearly scared to death by a screech- 
owl in the limbs of the tree above. Well, we have the same 
kind of birds of evil omen with us to-day, hooting and making 
night hideous — and day too, for that matter. But, as God 
is my judge, I believe they are just as harmless as was that 
screech-owl up at John \'each's. (Loud cheering.) Wash- 
ington was under their influence to a certain degree at Valley 
Forge, Jackson at New Orleans, and they troubled, as we all 
know, the great soul of Abraham Lincoln. But, as I say and 
as I believe, the croakers are harmless. 

"When Washington unfurled the Star-spangled Banner, 
he said it should wave, and wave in triumph for a thous- 
and years. I believe in tl:e young men of our country. The 
boys here (God bless them!) are the hope of the country, 
because on them will rest the future of our country. The 
young men of the country sustained Washington at Valley 
Forge and Yorktown ; young men sustained Jackson, Grant, 
and Lee; and I believe that if the young men of America are 
as true to their flag and their country as the men of the past 



240 Recollections 

have been, that old flag- will not only wave a thousand years, 
as predicted by Washington, but will wave till Time shall 
chase the crumbling world out over the broad quicksands 
of Eternity! (Prolonged cheering.)" 

That most old soldiers are without experimental knowl- 
edge of the joys and sorrows of young manhood, and seem to 
have jumped directly from boyhood into old age, is accounted 
for ill this way: We went to the front as mere boys; in the 
Army had to and did assume and grapple with duties and 
responsibilities of mature manhood ; at muster-out took up the 
practical realities of relentless life among our fellows, and 
never once stopped to think of the flight of time. 

Business of a political nature again calling me to the 
national capital late this year (1909), the occasion was made 
one of pleasure as well, and pleasant stops were made at vari- 
ous i)laces. First at Springfield, Illinois, where the vast his- 
torical collections relating to the eventful life of the great 
Lincoln were seen and studied with pride, interest, and proht, 
from the Lincoln home to the Historical Society rooms in "heir 
capitol building. My next stop was at the seat of justice of 
my native county, Fairmont. West Virginia. Here I enlisted 
in the Union Army, but during my stay met but two members 
of our company that went to the front in July, '61 — Captain 
John Fisher, who was then our first lieutenant, and Charles C. 
Eyster. From Fairmont to Clarksburg by trolley was a pleas- 
ant ride, and there I met many men and women whom I had 
known when stationed at their military headquarters in '63-4, 
in the efifort "to put down the RebelHon." Two of my anni- 
versaries (December 9th) were spent in that town — in '63 and 
'09 — but there is a big difiference between nineteen and six- 
ty-five. Among my birthday presents this year was a copy of 
"The Daughter of the Elm/' p.p historical novel of long ago. 



Soldier Friends 241 

with the scene laid in old Marion County. In war-times I of- 
ten saw this same great elm tree and only the other day on the 
trolley passed right by its well-preserved "stump." When a 
boy I knew personally some of the characters portrayed by the 
writer of the book and then heard the story of nearly .all the 
rest. At my next stopping-place, the B. & O. Railroad junc- 
tion, about the only two things I saw that tim.e had not changed 
were the Grafton House and the old sycamore tree on the river 
bank, where 1 had tried to murder by long boiling in a camp- 
kettle the first installment of gray-backs that got into my Army 
shirt in the fall of '6i. Our old camping-ground was covered 
with houses and streets, which also encroached upon the ad- 
jacent hills. Indeed, one of the many changes I noted in West 
Mrginia was that since the war towns and villages with from 
500 to 1,000 population have grown to be cities of many thou- 
sands ; ever}body seems rich and prosperous, while many that 
I once knew as poor boys have retired from active life in ease 
and afiluence, as the result mainly of their wealth of coal, 
gas, oil, waler. and wood. People there do not rush and rustle 
as ^ve (>f the ]\Iiddle West, but the natural resources of their 
country force riches upon them all the same. 

Since the war I have often been over the old stamping- 
ground, but always flattered myself that I was in too much of 
a hurry to study these familiar scenes. But by this time I 
had learned that my habit of rush and hurry was but one of 
the many errors of earlier years, and so I left home away 
ahead of time, traveled leisurely by easy stages, made frequent 
stops, and "on the old camp-ground" especially took the time to 
see and know in the light of day. Over the old B. «& O. Rail- 
road in this way, from Wheeling eastward to Harper's Ferry 
on the way to Washington, from the Pullman car window, I 
again passed through the historic towns of Grafton, Oakland, 



242 Recollections 

Piedmont. New Creek (now Keyser), Cumberland, and Mar- 
tinsburg, and in a lazy, comfortable sort of way, and without a 
shadow of fear of either my superior officer or the enemy, saw 
many places where I had camped, drilled, marched, fought, 
and sometimes run, away back in the days when I went sol- 
diering. One of the many familiar and interesting sights on 
this trip was a large rock on the line of the railroad bearing 
this historical legend: "Rosby's Rock. Track closed Christ- 
mas eve, 1852." In constructing the road, its main track was 
laid westward from Baltimore; but to gain time its projectors 
also laid track eastward from Wheeling for about twenty 
miles, and the rails were joined at Rosby's Rock. One of the 
many schemes of George Washington was to join the Atlantic 
Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico by dredging rivers, with locks, 
dams, and canals on the Potomac, Youghiogheny, and Mon- 
ongahela, to the Ohio River. This was then known as "the 
Potomac scheme," and on its realization the great Washington 
worked, studied, and planned for many long years. So it 
came about that this great railroad had its origin in the fertile 
brain of the Father of his country, and when the tracks of the 
B. & O. Railroad were closed at Rosby's Rock, his dream came 
true; not in the way he hoped and wrought, for he dreamed of 
waterway transportation, while the builders of that road at- 
tained the same result by the more modern method of con- 
necting the waters of the Atlantic and the Gulf by a steam 
railroad, 

Joshua Thorne, Kansas City, Missouri. Born in Eng- 
land, reared and educated in the South, the outbreak of the 
Civil War found Dr. Joshua Thorne in full practice as a phys- 
sician and surgeon at Kansas City. His kindred adhered to 
the Southland, but he was always true to country, flag, and 
constitution. So he became, and throughout the war re- 



Soldier Friends 243 

mained, in full charge and control of all field and general hos- 
pital afifairs at and about Kansas City. When the war ended, 
no man did more to cement and make strong and great the 
Union of all our States and peoples. 

His reading was extensive, he thought much, was a will- 
ing student of Aloses, Buddha, Confucius, Zoroaster, Mahom- 
et, and Jesus of Nazareth, and, professing neither creed nor 
dogma, he culled the choicest bits of wisdom and philosophy 
from all these, as well as from every other attainable source. 

We were long members of the same G. A. R. Post in this 
city, and soon after his death on June 12, 1893, Major Ross 
Guffin, Colonel Theo. S. Case, and others presented at our 
Joshua Thorne memorial meeting most tender and loving 
resolutions and talks respecting the life and character of our 
dead comrade. As the chairman of that meeting, I then re- 
sponded, and, among other things, said: 

"The attempt to add aught to the beautiful tributes of 
Major Guflfin, and other comrades who have so long known 
him whose memory we honor to-night, would, 1 know, end in 
a fruitless effort to gild refined gold. Thoughts and language 
alike fail me. But I must add some poor tribute to the mem- 
ory of my dead friend. 

"Living. I enjoyed his friendship; dead, with pleasure 
I now recall the fact that when overwhelmed with the sorrows 
and cares of others, when so over-worked and weary that con- 
secutive thought was as irksome as the task of the galley- 
slave, for years and years it was my custom to close books 
and desk and seek that never-failing source of restful and 
recreative light and life, and therefrom draw such comfort 
and consolation as rarely comes, to man, save from heaven. 

"Once in his presence, the simple question upon any given 
subject was sufficient to put into active, intelligent, soulful 
motion the delicate yet powerful machinery of his clear, log- 



244 Recollections 

ical mind; whether the problem related to men or measures, 
history, morals, religion, poetry, philosophy, or what not, he 
was equally at home; 'like some vast river of unfailing source, 
rapid, deep, exhaustless,' his lofty thoughts and wondrous the- 
ories unfolded as the opening of the rose, and found incisive 
and intelligent expression in language so lucid and so strong 
that the mists cleared away, darkness became light, and crook- 
ed things straight. 

"So, after the opening of the subject, often have I thrown 
myself upon his couch and in dreamy enchantment listened 
while with learning, wit, wisdom, and eloquence he for hours 
and hours, like the sage and philosopher, discoursed. And 
so instructive, refreshing, and soothing these conversations 
that to me indeed were they 'as the dew of Hermon, and as 
the dew that descended upon the mountain of Zion.' Manv 
a time when thus soul-oppressed has 'he brought me up al- 
so out of an horrible pit. out of the miry clay, and set my feet 
upon a rock and established my goings.' 

"Into the care of but few of the sons and the daughters 
of men has the Beneficent Giver of all good entrusted such 
subtle power, with touch so light, magical, and gentle, to 
smooth out all the wrinkles upon human heart and brow. 
Indeed, in raising up the bowed down, healing the broken- 
hearted, removing burdens of the weary and lieavy-laden, such 
an adept was Comrade Thorne that, reflecting now upon the 
softening, tranquilizing influence of his words of healing and 
of balm, I recall in all history but one adequate comparison, 
and that in the efifect produced when upon the troubled Sea 
of Galilee the Master stood forth and said, Teace, be still.' 

"It was always good to be with him. One might enter 
his presence feeling that the world was cold, practical, cyn- 
ical; yet never left it without a higher appreciation of race, 
kind, and self. 

"Dr. Thome's attainments were at once rare, varied, and 
vast ; his intellectual grasp and powers of analysis marvelously 



Soldier Friends 245 

rapid and accurate; his soul and his imagination poetic and 
sublime; yet, from these apart, an irresistible and character- 
istic charm lay in his wide charity, modest generosity, his high 
moral, mental, and physical courage. His heart and hand and 
purse were always open to the needy and destitute, and he 
was, through sunshine and storm, in all the troublous times 
of tho past, so true and loyal to his convictions, country, and 
friends that, while honored and respected by all, yet fliose who 
knew him best either loved or feared him. 

"Doubt or ambition, hope or fear, might cause others .o 
waver and shake as a shadow ; but firm as an oak, in the pres- 
ence of friends and enemies alike, stood our dead friend. 

'His large and sympathetic heart encircled humanity; 
his genial presence threw off rays of purest, sweetest sunshine; 
with lavish loving Ikuu! he showered gifts upon the poor, and 
the beneficent influence, in the years that shall be, of that gen- 
erous heart and hand, who can measure? How apt the famil- 
iar illustration of the pebble into ocean cast ! First dappling up 
the water, then creating tiny circles that greater and wider ex- 
tend until at last they break upon the farther shore. As care- 
lessly as the little boy casts a pebble into the water,, and as lit- 
tle heeding the ultimate result, did Dr. Thorne perform an act 
of kindness. The same impulse moved each, and if asked 
'Why?' each would probably have returned the answer, 'Just 
because I wanted to.' But so many did his strong, brave words 
of wise consolation lift up, so many his benefactions, so gen- 
uine, gentle, and effective his deeds of kindness, so prolific 
in lasting good, that the influence of his hand and heart and 
brain will be felt until the Ocean of Eternity shall sweep the 
Island of Time into oblivion. 'Ulysses is dead and there is no 
one in all Ithaca to bend his bow.' Honor to the memory — 
peace to the ashes — rest to the soul of Joshua Thorne." 

Nathan Wilkinson, Wheeling, West \'irginia. This 
Quaker-fighter-business man was born in New Jersey a long 



246 Recollections 

time ago and died at his home in Wheeling in 1889; but dur- 
ing the war he was the colonel of my old regiment, command- 
ed a brigade toward the close, and my last year in the Army 
was spent as chief clerk of that brigade ; during all this time 
we were closely connected in war matters, as well as socially, I 
came to love and revere him as my military father, and I can- 
not pass him by. For to me, an unlettered youth from the 
farm, he was throughout life the embodiment of all that was 
gooel, noble, generous, learned, wise, dignified, able, and fear- 
less in man. 

As a close, sagacious, successful, accurate business man, 
I have never yet found his equal, and whatever of success I 
may have attained since the war, I attribute to-day to his great 
example and wise training, for it was he who first taught me 
the value of accuracy and promptness in every undertaking. 
When first I assumed the duties of my new position in the 
summer of 1863, among many other things, I was required to 
make up from regimental and post returns the official reports 
of our brigade, and to me they seemed as big as a barn door 
and nearly all made up of figures — then, as now, my pet aver- 
sion. My room was next to his, and in the compilation of 
the last item of our report, if he heard me using the eraser 
on a single figure (and he seemed to hear and heed every 
sound), the order came, "Lay that sheet aside, comrade, and 
mal<:e out an entire new report." The change was, of course, 
made as directed ; there was no back talk, nor was a single 
figure inconsequential to Wilkinson. In all military and bus- 
iness afl!"airs he was as rigid and unyielding as any martinet ; yet 
in private life no one was more considerate. So it was not 
many months until his ways were mine, and together we con- 
versed, rode horseback, consulted, and often called upon and 
sang and danced with the pretty girls. He was then a wid- 



Soldier Friends 247 

ower and I a boy. That he was always a .adies' man was 
evidenced by the fact that in his long life he had been the 
husband of five wives, and when I visited him last, he drove 
me out to the cemetery at Wheeling and pointed out in the 
Wilkinson lot the graves of four of these who had passed 
to the beyond, while his last still survives him. Nothing ever 
escaped him, especially a lovely woman. One day down at 
New Creek (now Keyser), in the spring of '64, after he and 
I had made an inspection of outposts, pickets, etc., he said to 
me at the office: "Henry, did you notice that lady we passed 
up at Reese's? She has a good face and beautiful arms." 
Like a good soldier, I cheerfully lied in answering, "No, sir, 
not especially." Well, this lady chanced to adhere to the 
Union; was a refugee from over in the Valley of Virginia; 
of good blood and family; a widow, and the Colonel finally 
married her. She was his fourth wife; up to her death I 
often met her, and nothing could be finer than her devotion 
to the dear old warrior. She could not get his exact age, 
and thought she had him where he must answer definitely 
when the taker of the census of 1880 came around; but when 
that question was asked out on his piazza at home, without 
batting an eye the wily Colonel answered, "Past fifty," and she 
never did know. But he told me he was born in 1809. 

One day while at New Creek in the spring of 1864, the 
Colonel was called on official business to Harper's Ferry, 
all stafif officers were out at nearby Hawk's Nest Cave, and 
I was left to run things at headquarters. A scout dashed up 
with the news that a goodly force of the enemy were to cross 
the Alleghanies at May's Gap, thirty miles away, between mid- 
night and two o'clock the following morning, to capture our 
outpost. Directing this courier to select a fresh horse from 
the corral and eat his dinner, saddle up, and then report to 



248 Recollections 

our office, I hastily prepared an order to our post command- 
ant at Greenland Gap, telling him all I knew, and more, and 
directing him how to reach this Gap, station his men, and not 
fire until the Confederate rear guard was well into the pass, 
and then capture the entire party. I was so expert in sign- 
ing the Colonel's name that all his money in the bank could 
have been drawn or a prisoner of war shot on that signature 
of mine. So I carefully signed this order, "N. Wilkinson, 
Colonel commanding Brigade," and sent it away with that 
trusted scout. That night I neither slumbered nor slept, for 
I thought the scheme might fail. Luckily for me, the plan car- 
ried; the Confederate command at the Gap had duly appeared, 
been gobbled up, nearly every man captured, and nobody hurt. 
This glad news came late that afternoon. I neither could, 
nor did I, ever explain anything to the stafif, but when the 
Colonel returned, I made to him a clean breast of the whole 
story. He was grave, thoughtful, but kind, and only said: 
"Never take such chances again ; it 's too risky." He knew, 
and so did I, that had my schejne failed, I ought to have been 
court-martialed and shot. That was only one of the many 
chances of war. But success and failure mark the wide dif- 
ference between revolution and rebellion, and it was no credit 
to me that my plan won. No one but the Colonel and I ever 
knew the whole truth of the matter, and after his gentle re- 
buke, I never again assumed such a risk. 

For many years the Colonel lived in the suburbs of Bos- 
ton; he was there the near neighbor and personal friend of 
that great expounder and defender of the Constitution, Dan- 
iel Webster, and I have in my library now the complete works 
of Webster in six volumes presented to me by Wilkinson. 
Southern in everything except politics, it always nettled me 
to hear the claim that New England was entitled to all the 



Soldier Friends • 249 

glory, honor, and credit for all the patriotism and loyalty of 
our American civilization. They do not yet comprehend the 
fact that originally slavery was a national, not a sectional 
sin, nor that at the adoption of the Federal Constitution in 
1789 negro slaves were owned throughout this country; that 
business interests, and not sentiment, guided our ancestors; 
that the conscience of the Far North was first awakened by a 
knowledge of the fact that negroes could not endure the rigors 
of that climate, and this knowledge led them to tlierc first abol- 
ish slavery. Further, the first blood shed for American lib- 
erty was that of a slave, held and owned in Boston. His 
name was Crispus Attucks. Out on their Common they have 
there erected a monument commemoratin<j the life and death 
of this slave of late years ; but only a few descendants of the 
"Mayflower" ever heard of, or piously ignore, these basic facts 
of history. So when I could not help hearing a conversation 
between Colonel Wilkinson and an old iat friend of his from 
Boston, in the spring of 1864, my blood was stirred, yet no 
word escaped me. They were. men and knew things, while 
I was only a private and a soldier. They agreed upon the 
proposition that John S. Carlisle, who was late a U. S. senator 
and lived in the next block to our Clarksburg headquarters, 
had lost all his chances for the Vice-Presidency, for which he 
had been slated, by a bitter and unwise speech in the Senate 
in opposition to the annexation of Berkeley and Jefferson 
counties to the new State of West Virginia. They also. agreed 
that Lincoln must and would be re-nominated for President, 
but in his talk against the probable nomination of Andrew 
Johnson for Lincoln's running mate, this well-fed Bostonian 
said, and that hurt me : "I am unalterably opposed to Johnson's 
nomination, for the reason that he was born south of Mason 
and Dixon's line and no Southern man can long be loyal to 



250 Recollections 

either the Union or the RepubHcan party. If Johnson should 
be nominated and Lincoln should happen to die, then our Pres- 
ident would soon distrust his party allies; he would fawn up- 
on and soon become the tool of the aristocrats of the South ; 
be mere putty in the hands of the Democrats. He will not 
do; for our \'ice-President we must get a Northern man." 
The world knows the outcome of all this ; but at the time his 
criticism seemed harsh, severe, and unjust. A boy does not 
see. far ahead of his nose. To me it is clear now that I shall 
never know as much about politics as I thought I knew then. 

My last visit with Colonel Wilkinson was in September, 
1888. Then I wired him from Newark, Ohio: "On arrival 
of first through train from here, I will again report for duty 
to my old commander." The train was hours late and 1 did 
not arrive at Wheeling until after dark. In the dim light I 
again recognized the tall, soldierly form as the Colonel was 
pacing back and forth in the station waiting for me. He 
sent a message to his business associates that he would not be 
down town, and for the next forty-eight hours and at his home 
we fought the war all over again. When first I went with him 
in 1863, the Colonel was smoking a special brand of Wheeling 
stogies ; I then learned to like them, have smoked them ever 
since, another one of that same kind in my mouth right now. 
In 1888 I was en route to my old home county and was there 
billed to make a speech from the same platform with the Colo- 
nel's old friend and mine. Governor Pierpoint ; his parting ad- 
monition was: "Now, my boy, when you get back to Marion 
County, for the honor of the old regiment, I want you to make 
the efifort of your life, and if your speech equals Frank Pier- 
point's, I will die happy." 

Whether on detached duty or carrying a musket in the 
ranks, in camp or field or on the march, it now seems there 



Soldier Friends 251 

was no variation or change in the rule that our sutlers never 
carried in stock but one class of literature — "Beadle's Dime 
Novel." Being an omnivorous reader, I must have mastered 
the contents of cords of these novels, and was still reading 
them when I went with Wilkinson. He soon switched me, 
first to British magazines, which we found in abundance at 
headquarters ; then to Prescott's "Conquest of Mexico and 
Peru," and from that deliglitful, novel-like reading, to books 
from his own magnificent library back in his home. The re- 
sult of his attention, kindness, scholarship, and wise direction 
was that from the lightest of all reading he had gotten me into 
the habit of reading and studying the best books of that day 
before I left him, and that habit has clung to me ever since. 



252 Recollections 



VII. 



Journalists. 

If mankind were allotted some thousand years on this 
earth, instead of being cut off with one scant century, of course 
the end would come before we even suspected a lot of things 
we ought to say and do and know. But really, now. if my own 
time here were not so short, it would afford me pleasure to 
say a word about each of the many journalists I have known. 

For example, there is Major John L. Bittinger, for 
many long years the editor of the Herald at St. Joseph, Mis- 
souri. I 've known the Major and stood by him through thick 
and thin for forty-three years, because he has always been as 
true as the North Star, as brainy as the best, as able and ear- 
nest with his pen' and voice as the wisest — and then, I like the 
man. He knew Lincoln and Douglas personally and reported 
their great joint debates in 1858; was the trusted personal 
friend of Lincoln, Frank Blair, Colonel Van Horn, Governor 
Willard P. Hall, B. Gratz Brown, and a lot of other strong 
Union men of this State away back in early war-times, and 
the people who know him have often placed him in high official 
station. In 1874 I went from my home at Gallatin to St. 
Joseph and there had a long conference at the old Pacific 
House with many other of the Major's friends, for to him 
the hour was dark. Upon leaving, the Major came out to the 
old horse-car line with me in front of the hotel, and in my 
earnest good-bye effort to cheer him up, I threw a line from 



Journalists 253 

Cowper at him and quoted, "God moves in a mysterious way 
His wonders to perform." And to this sentiment, but without 
a smile, the good Major responded, "Yes, and I am just laying 
for him." 

But one of his crisp sentences thrilled me back in 1905, 
and it came about this way : The Major was then past seventy, 
a member of the Missouri Legislature from his district, and in 
our deadlock which resulted in sending Major William Warner 
to the U. S. Senate was the leader of the bolters, who sup- 
ported for that office Colonel Kerens, of St. Louis. The joint 
sessions were presided over by a Lieutenant-Governor who 
warmly supported the Republican caucus nominee, and, hav- 
ing a rod in pickle for the Major, had twitted the veteran 
on his age. On the roll-call vote of the next day, the Major's 
name came early, and with all the strength of a vigorous young 
man he then answered to his name in this way: "If not now 
deemed too old by an insolent presiding officer, Bittinger, of 
St. Joseph, now casts his vote for Richard C. Kerens, of St. 
Louis." 

Then there was Archibald W. Campbell, who was the 
editor and owner of the Wheeling (W. Va. Intelligencer, who 
with either pen or tongue was always earnest, loyal, faithful, 
logical, and forceful. No man in the State did more in any 
way to aid the loyal than did he. Later in life we often met 
at National Conventions, as well as at Wheeling ; but our last 
long talk was at the old St. Charles Hotel at New Orleans in 
1883. 

There was Joseph B. McCullough, who died only a few 
years ago as the editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 
Through his vigorous pen. the world knew McCullough and 
applauded him. He deserved it. In the war and when I 
knew him best, he was the war correspondent for some Cin- 



254 Recollections 

cinnati newspaper and then signed all his articles "Mack." Irr 
both civil and military circles no one was then regarded with 
higher favor, for all knew that "Mack" wrote the exact truth. 

The temptation, too, is strong to say a few things about 
other great journalists I 've met ; notably, Charles A. Dana, of 
the New York Sun; Horace Greeley, of the Tribune; Murat 
Halstead, of the Cincinnati Commercial; Morrison Munford, 
of the Times, and William R. Nelson, of the Star, both of Kan- 
sas City ; Henry Watterson, of the Louisville Courier-Journal, 
et al.; hut through their several newspapers the world knows 
all about eacli of them anyway. 

Most of the Journalists 1 have known have long since 
written their last editorials, some have retired, and the remain- 
ing few still wear the newspaper harness; but, as the civiliza- 
tion of the day advances, the early-day editor is fast disap 
pearing. Our great newspapers originally reflected the pol- 
itics, personality, and individuality of the one man who owned 
and edited the paper; but, in the evolution of time, nearly all 
these arc now owned and controlled by corporations, the edi- 
tor-in-chief often writes not a line, directs others what to do 
and how ; editorial writers are employed who can and do rep- 
resent either side of any question, and the paper is run by 
and for the stockholders, but who does the heavy editorial 
work is unknown to outsiders. The progress of the times- 
demanded this changa — and got it. 

There are, however, two great journalists, veterans of 
the pen, of whom I shall here say more ; and these are Colo- 
nel Van Horn, of Kansas City, and Web Wilder, of Hiawa- 
tha, Kansas. They stand at the head of the class, and have 
for over half a century been close friends and neighbors in the 
newspaper world. My long personal friendship may accou:it 



Journalists 255 

in part for this partiality, but each deserves far more than he 
has ever received. 

Robert Thompson Van Horn, Journal, Kansas City, Mo» 

Ever since this town site was first platted in 1839, wise 
and far-sighted citizens of the then frontier trading hamlet 
near the mouth of the Kansas River have worked without 
ceasing and done their full duty in efiforts to advance every 
material interest of people and city. To each of these pio- 
neers of thought, energy, and action much credit is due and 
given. 

But in his long and efficient labor for the public weal, 
one name must be placed high above all others, one man has 
done more than they, for as writer, student, thinker, editor, 
official, worker, and lover of Kansas City, Colonel Van Horn 
to-day stands, and for over half a century has stood, without 
either rival or peer. A hasty glance through eighty-five years 
of the life and achievements of Colonel Van Horn will be of 
interest to Kansas City : 

Born in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, on May 19, 1824. 
A printer-boy in the office of the Register at the town of 
Indiana, Pennsylvania, on April 24, 1839. A journeyman 
printer in many States, by turns a newspaper editor, teach- 
er, lawyer, steamboatman, from 1843 to 1855. Married Miss 
Adela Honeywood Cooley at Pomeroy. Ohio, on December 
2, 1848. Owner, editor, and responsible head of the now 
Kansas City Journal from 1855 to 1897, and was first induced 
to locate here because of the facts : that populous American 
cities are either on the water front or at the bend of some! 
navigable river; that the Missouri River runs nearly due south 
for hundreds of miles and at Kansas City bends sharply to- 



256 Recollections 

ward the east, with the only natural solid rock cliff at the 
turn found along the river at any town ; that loaded wagons 
can go nearly due west for a thousand miles without crossing 
a stream of great size; and that the town then had a glorious 
future. When he reached here, the census just taken then 
showed a total population of but 457 persons. 

Wrote the constitution and became a charter member of 
the Kansas City Association for Public Improvement in 1856. 
This later beceme our Chamber of Commerce, and then 
merged into our Board of Trade. 

Attended a railroad meeting at Linneus, Missouri, as a 
representative of this city in 1857, and the movement then 
inaugurated resulted in the building of the Cameron branch, 
which is now ai -^art of the main line of the Burlington Rail- 
way system. 

Postmaster from 1857 to 1861. 

Commenced in 1858 and thereafter . continued the pub- 
lication of the Dailyi^ Journal. Attended another railroad- 
meeting in that year, and there drew the ten resolutions, 
unanimously adopted, calling for the immediate construction 
of many railroads radiating from Kansas City, and thereafter 
presented these resolutions in person to the U. S. Congress 
at Washington. The wide publication of this memorial first 
drew national attention to the 39th parallel railroad route, 
and the facts were forcibly presented to Congress by Senator 
John B. Henderson, of Missouri, about 1862, and finally re- 
sulted in the construction and operation of that which is now 
our main line of the Union Pacific Railway. 

Spent large parts of 1858-9 at Washington, D. C, and 
at Jefferson City, Missouri, in looking after legislation favor- 
able to the city. As a member of Congress he had to be at 



Journalists 257 

the national capital and on duty; but for his paper and for 
the city he in fact spent most of his winters there for over 
forty years. 

In tlie Journal, and elsewhere, he supported Stephen A. 
Douglas as the Union Democratic candidate for the Presi- 
dency, and opposed the movement for secession in i860. 

Mayor of Kansas City, elected over Dr. G. M. B. Maughs, 
the Secession candidate, early in 1861. By the Act of May 
15th of that year, the opposition sought to change the law by 
here creating a Board of Police Commissioners, to be appoint- 
ed by the Governor and authorized by law to employ and 
discharge the police force, and to take that power from the 
Mayor. Van Horn's election saved Kansas City to the Union. 

Recruited "Van Horn's Battalion," the first Union troops 
here organized, in June, 1861 ; and was in command of the 
post at Kansas City. As post commander, he then issued an 
order which practically abrogated the Act of Alay 15th, and 
the next day issued a proclamation, as Mayor of this city, rec- 
ognizing and enforcing the Federal authority. So that law 
became a nullity. 

Participated in the battle of Lexington, Missouri ; was 
there wounded and finally surrendered to General Price, with 
other forces under Colonel Mulligan. Van Horn's Battal- 
ion then merged into the 25th Regiment, Missouri Volunteer 
Infantry, and he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of that 
regiment. 

As the commander of that regiment, he fought in the 
great battle at Shiloh, Tennessee, in 1862, and after their com- 
manding officer (Colonel Peabody) was there killed. Colonel 
Van Horn commanded the brigade during the remainder of 
the fight and thereafter. Was later in command of the work- 
ing forces that built the abbatis at Corinth, Mississippi, un- 



258 Recollections 

der Generals Grant and Rosencrans, and after the battle at 
Medon Station, was sent with his forces to reinforce General 
John A. Logan at Jackson. Not long after this, Colonel 
Van Horn's regiment, being greatly depleted by losses in battle, 
was sent back to Missouri, and was thereafter consolidated 
with and became a part of the ist Missouri Engineers, better 
known as "Bissell's Engineers." There then being two sets of 
officers in that regiment. Colonel Van Horn retired from act- 
ive duty as a soldier. 

Elected a Missouri State senator, without his consent, 
and while at the front with his regiment in 1862. Milton J. 
Payne and E. Milton McGee were then sent by the people 
to the lower house of the Legislature. 

There are yet citizens who get red in the face and froth at 
the mouth when discussing the horrors of enforcing the terms 
of "General Order No. 11," which was here promulgated on 
August 25, 1863, and through General Bingham, the people 
of the affected district later defeated for Governor of Ohio 
the Democratic soldier and statesman who issued it. But 
looking backward to that time and this place, forty-six yearj. 
after the occurrence, to me it seems our people overlook the 
fact that there have always been wide differences between war 
and peace, a soldier and a typical Sunday-school teacher, for 
this country was then in a state of actual war, and, as Gen- 
eral Sherman once truly said, 'War is hell." As nearly as 
I can get them, the facts are that this order then issued from 
"Headquarters District of the Border," by order of General 
Ewing, requiring disloyal residents of certain districts within 
that command "to remove from their present places of resi- 
dence within fifteen days from the date hereof." Living with- 
in this district and personally well known to man} ot the 
people offected by the unnecessarily severe terms of this order. 



Journalists 259 

the people of the country, speaking through the written re- 
quest of Rufus Montgall and many others whose hearts were 
with the South, successfully implored the commanding gen- 
eral of the Department to appoint Colonel Van Horn to con- 
duct the deportation. They knew and there said that he was 
honest and sympathetic, generous and humane. 

Mayor of Kansas City again in 1S64, and later elected 
a member of the Congress of the United States, taking his 
seat at Washington on March 4, 1865; but until the last elate 
continued in office as State Senator. 

As our State senator, he had adopted the bill which 
trought the now Missouri Pacific Railroad to Kansas City; 
also the act incorporating the 'Missouri Company," February 
15, 1864. This last law granted unlimited powers and finally 
resulted in the construction, among many other enterprises, 
of the present Belt Line Railroad around the city. Colonel 
Van Horn, also drew and passed the legislative laws which 
released the taxpayers included within "Order No. 11" from 
their State taxes for 1S62 and 1863 ; and also suspended the 
enforcement of liens under judgments, for the execution of 
that order had left waste parts of the counties of Jackson, 
Cass, Bates, and \'ernon. 

Delegate to the great council of the five civilized Indian 
tribes held at Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1865, and by treaty 
there secured through the Indian lands the right to construct 
the now M.. K. & T. Railroad. 

As our member. Colonel \'an Horn drew and introduced 
into Congress in January, 1868, the first bill for the organiza- 
tion of the Territory of Oklahoma — a Creek Indian word 
meaning "Red Man's Land," name and meaning suggested by 
•our good old friend, Elias Boudinot, an educated mixed blood 
•Cherokee Indian. 



2G0 Recollections 

Colonel Van Horn ably represented this district in the 
U. S. Congress by elections in 1864, 1866, 1868, 1880, and 
1894. Under President Grant's appointment, he here served 
as internal revenue collector from 1875 to 1881 ; was a Mis- 
souri delegate at large to every Republican national convention 
from 1864 to 1884, twice our National Committee man and 
also served as the chairman of the Missouri State Committee. 

All the foregoing record facts may be seen and read m 
print; but, with his usual modesty, Colonel Van Horn still 
insists that he was in advance of his people largely because 
of the other facts that he was known as the Kansas City 
Journal editor, was loyal to the Government, and was at va- 
rious times in public office. 

But there is now no doubt that by his election as Alayor 
in 1861 and as the volunteer aid on the staff of General Cur- 
tis in charge of the defences of this city during the last Price 
raid, which culminated in the decisive battle at Westport in 
October, 1864, Colonel \'an Horn twice rendered to the city 
such public service as actually saved the city from falling 
into the hands of the Confederacy. 

The further results of his active public life were the early 
entrance into Kansas City of these present-day railroads: Bur- 
lington, Missouri Pacific, Wabash, Union Pacific, Memphis, 
St. Paul; and also in the construction of the present gas- 
works, water-works, and stock-yards plants. 

In early times the rivals of this city were Randolph and 
Quindaro, the latter then having the largest and best hotel 
in the West. Then came the cities of Leavenworth, Atchison, 
and St. Joseph. But when the Civil War closed, all these 
towns realized the fact that under the wise, sagacious, and 
far-sighted inspiration and work of Van Horn and his fellow- 
townsmen, Kansas City, in securing ample legislation, was. 



Journalists '261 

more than ten years in advance of any and all of its rivals. 
Not a man among them ever profited a penny by all this work 
and law, for they never either thought or worked in dollars. 
To them Kansas City was everything; the individual citizen, 
the dollar, nothing. 

Charles C. Spalding, the author and publisher of "An- 
nals of Kansas City," was here a reporter on the Journal in 
1857-8, and his book, in the main, was by him then taken and 
made up from the files of that paper. 

While a member of Congress. Colonel \'an Horn drew 
and secured the passage of the laws under which the Hanni- 
bal (now Burlington) railroad bridge was constructed across 
the Missouri River in 1869, and later on, in the same way, 
procured the necessary national legislation for a like bridge 
over that river, now for many years known as the Chicago, 
Milwaukee & St. Paul bridge. 

In the retirement of his country home near this city, at 
the age of eighty-five years, Colonel Van Horn retains all the 
mental strength and vigor of his earlier life; with keen relish 
enjoys the love and companionship of his good wife and fam- 
ily, his books, magazines, and papers, and no one enjoys life 
more than he. He came to Kansas City fifty-four years ago, 
and with pleasure and pride has witnessed its growth from 
that day to this. 

Many years ago Colonel Van Horn and I were talking 
with a group of gentlemen in the Senate lobby at Washington, 
when Senator \'ance discovered a newly made millionaire, 
who had just purchased a seat in the Senate, pacing back and 
forth with knitted brows and hands behind him, and asked 
Senator Vest what this fellow was doing. In a flash Vest 
answered: "The damphool thinks he "s thinking." Ever since 
I 've known him. Colonel Van Horn, like Vest, has had scant 



262 Recollections 

patience with those who merely think they think. No one 
better knows the wisdom of the wise saw, that "you can't make 
a silk purse out of a sow's ear," nor that educated asses some- 
times break out of collegiate corrals ; and while schools, col- 
leges, universities, and books are good, and those who have 
not their advantages must always regret it, yet practical 
thougiit, reflection, and common sense are better. So, like 
most others who can and do think and reason out problems 
for themselves (and this class is not overburdened with mem- 
bers), Colonel Van Horn spends but little time or thought on 
the mere theoristic bookworm. Industry may bring knowl- 
edge, but not wisdom. As an evidence of his theory on this 
question, he was not long ago talking with me about someone 
who was simply bookish, when I asked: "But, Colonel, is he 
worth while; does this fellow really know anything?" "Know 
anything?" he said, "no; why, he is as ignorant as a college 
graduate." He uses his brain and knows that the man who 
cannot reason is a fool; who will not, a bigot; and who dare 
not, a slave. 

Lest these facts may be overlooked, I want to note inci- 
dentally here that about the year 1848 Colonel Van Horn 
became a charter member of the Masonic Lodge at Pomeroy, 
Ohio, and also a Knight Templar of Mount Vernon Com- 
mandery. No. i, at Columbus, Ohio, and is still a member 
there in good standing in all these Masonic bodies; that the 
Supreme Court of Ohio granted him a license to practice law 
in that year; and that he loved to dance better than 10 eat away 
back there, and long after he came to Kansas City he was 
the champion waltzer of the Kaw's mouth. 

Since his retirement from the activities of lite on die 
Journal, Colonel Van Horn and his wife (see Appendix) have 
spent much time in traveling to many Interesting parts of 



Journalists 263 

America, and when they were down in Florida last winter I 

received a letter from Web Wilder which was so good in 

so many ways that I remailed it to the Colonel. Here is his 

answer : 

"Lake Helena, Fla., February 15, 1909. 
"Dear Judge McDougal: 

"I received your letter — your good letter — with Web Wild- 
er's characteristic letter to you. 

"I suppose it was this 'enclosure' you want me 'to read 
and study.* What a noble soul Web is! His description 
of a 'gripper' is as original as it is Wilderesque. I have 
in time past imbibed a prejudice against 'calomel,' but if it 
is 'a calomel mind' tliat our mutual friend has, I will have to 
reconsider my prejudices and become more hospitable toward 
it. Give him my recantation when you write him, and my 
proud appreciation of his personal compliment to me, empha- 
sized by that to our friend. Senator Johnson Clark. There 
is and never was but one Web Wilder. 

"Mrs. Van asks to be remembered to you and Mrs. Mc- 
Dougal, and to say Florida is a good place to read about bliz- 
zards of seventy-five miles an hour sweeping Kansas City. 
May the gods be good to you is the prayer of, 

''Yours always, R. T. Van Horn." 

On March 10, 1905, at a "Van Horn night" meeting 
held by the Greenwood Club in Kansas City, Colonel Van 
Horn and his family were present, along with many of our 
older citizens. Congratulatory speeches were made, the ad- 
dress of Prof. J. M. Greenwood being especially elaborate and 
interesting. Short talks were also made by Robert H. Hunt, 
Milton Moore, J. V. C. Karnes, J. S. Botsford, L. H. Waters, 
William J. Dalton, and myself. In his response to all this, 
Colonel Van Horn, in a short, crisp, terse talk, used more good 
English than all of us put together. This additional proof 
but strengthened my belief that in his powerful paper on the 
Colonel's life and services — incidentally the history of the de- 
velopment of the West — Prof. Greenwood was right in the 



264 Recollections 

conclusion that America had produced but four transcendent- 
ly great newspaper editors — viz., George D. Prentice, Horace 
Greeley, Samuel Bowles, and Robert T. Van Horn. 

With this record it will not be difficult to understand how 
and why I was then right in there saying: 

"Mr. President and Friends: 

"I have long been proud of the Kansas City spirit, which 
says and does things at the right time and in the right way. 
I am prouder of that spirit now than ever before, for it has 
here brought together so many representative men and women 
of this city to pay tribute to a venerable living friend whom 
we all respect, honor, and love. But I am proudest of all to- 
night that I enjoy the personal friendship of our distinguished 
guest of honor. Colonel R. T. Van Horn. 

"I have known him ever since I became a citizen of 
Missouri, nearly forty years ago. Our first bond of sympathy 
grew out of the fact that we had been soldiers of the Union 
in the Civil War and were members of the same political party. 
The passing years brought us closer together and each year has 
served to increase my admiration for the man — for his vast 
knowledge, profound wisdom, wonderful achievements, kind- 
ness of heart, simplicity of manner, his humanity — until to- 
night this big, brave, brainy, far-sighted, many-sided man ap- 
peals to me as a very giant in intellect and manly manhood. 

"In the days and years that are gone I have had many 
long heart-to-heart talks with Colonel Van Horn, and at the 
close of each have known that I not only knew more, but that 
I was a better man than when that talk commenced. And if 
I had that failh, hope, and belief of immortality so soothing to 
many of my betters, one of the anticipated delights of the 
mystic life beyond the River would be that I might there, 
as liere, again meet, greet, and commune with my friend, in 
and through all the days, weeks, months, years, centuries, 
and cycles yet to be. 

"I believe in, and have practiced, the sentiment expressed 
by the poet in the lines : 

'O friends, I pray to-night, 
Keep not your kisses for my dead, cold brow. 
The way is lonely ; let me feel them now. 



Journalists 2G5 

******** 

When dreamless rest is mine, I shall not need 
The tenderness for which I long to-night.' 

iAnd when a friend has either said or done a good thing, I 
have not wailed to speak of it over his or her grave, but have 
taken that friend by the hand and, face to face, expressed 
my grateful appreciation. Hence I am glad to be present 
to-night, to pay my tribute of personal respect to the jour- 
nalist, soldier, statesman, sage, philosopher, and friend, who 
for half a century has been the most useful citizen of Kansas 
City, as he to-day is easily our foremost citizen. And having 
him here at a disadvantage, I repeat to his face what 1 have 
so often said behind his back : Tliat the time will come when 
the rising generation will say with pleasure and pride, 'I knew 
Colonel R. T. Van Horn,' just as we of the passing genera- 
tion proudly say, 'I knew Abraham Lincoln.' 

"When the long, busy, useful, and beautifully blameless 
life of our beloved friend shall have closed — which the gods 
grant may be many years hence — then it may well be said of 
him, as the gifted John Boyle O'Reilly said of his ideal man: 

" 'And how did he live, that dead man there. 
In the country churchyard laid? 
Oh ! he ? He came for the sweet field air. 
He ruled no serfs and he knew no pride. 
He was one with the workers side by side. 
For the youth he mourned with an endless pity, 
Who were cast like snow on the streets of the city. 
He was weak, maybe ; but he lost no friend ; 
Who loved him once, loved on to the end. 
He mourned all selfish and shrewd endeavor; 
But he never injured a weak one — never. 
When censure was passed, he was kindly dumb; 
He was never so wise but a fault would come; 
He was never so old that he failed to enjoy 
The games and the dreams he had loved when a boy. 
He erred, and was sorry ; but never drew 
A trusting heart from the pure and true. 
When friends look back from the years to be, 
God grant they may say such things of me.' " 



266 Recollfxtions 

Daniel Werster Wilder, Hiawatha, Kansas, was born 
in New England circa four score years back, was reared and 
classically educated in that part of the footstool, but in early 
territorial days came to Kansas and has made that his home 
ever since. Within this more than half a century. Wilder 
has many times fallen from grace and filled public offices; but, 
as a rule, has wisely clung to his beloved books, edited news- 
papers, writen a lot, and thought more. The result of all this 
may be found in the history of that unique State and in the 
untold number of book, magazine, and newspaper articles 
which lie has written and printed. II is best known book is 
his "Annals of Kansas," his least known his "Shakespeare." 
In Topeka, Lawrence, Leavenworth, and maybe at other Kan- 
sas points, he has owned and edited newspapers; while grow- 
ing out of the troublous border trials of the long past, he 
was indicted as the editor and publisher of the St. Joseph 
(Missouri) Free Democrat in i860. In all this he has been 
as wise as a serpent, as harmless as a dove, as devoted to free- 
dom as a most ardent patriot, and as gentle as a girl. So no 
wonder that he is a welcome addition to all political, hlerary, 
social, and family circles; and the better he is known anywhere 
and everywhere the more he is beloved. 

Throughout the West everyone refers with kind affec- 
tion to "Web Wilder," for to all he is the same polished, 
scholarly, thoughtful, genial gentleman, and only a few know 
that for half a century he was associate editor of Bartlett's 
"Familiar Quotations." For many years we have been close 
personal friends and my love for and admiration of the man 
increases with increasing years. He is of the "Mayflower" 
and I of the Cavalier stock. The history and literature of the 
world are at his tongue's end. and he quaintly and quietly re- 
minds me, in his easy way, of how my Virginia ancestors in 



JOURNALISTS 267 

Colonial days, sometimes purchased their wives from the slums 
of London for so many pounds of tobacco; or how they then 
persecuted and drove out the Quakers, and often resorted to 
the ducking-stool for recalcitrant women in the waters of the 
historic James or the Chesapeake; and somehow I enjoy from 
him this gaff and chaff, for it is another reminder that perfec- 
tion was not given to man. He knows that every native Vir- 
ginian, from the bluest-blooded aristocrat down to the poorest 
and meanest white or black trash, either inadvertently, ma- 
liciously, or otherwise, is prone to be proud of his Virginia 
blood and birth, and always feels a little sorry for anyone who 
happened to be born in some other State or country. 

In an effort to get even with Wilder on this ancestral 
proposition. I once told him of a "Forefathers Day" banquet 
I attended in the city of New York, presided over by the best 
toastmaster to whom I ever listened, the great \\^ilHam M. 
Evarts. In either the toasts or responses, Evarts or some of 
the other speakers told of these three incidents of early times: 
From the time they sailed f rem The Hague, the Pilgrims were 
working on a code of new laws by which the "Plimoth Plan- 
tation" was to be governed ; but coming in sight of our shores 
sooner than they expected and before their laws were com- 
pleted, they drew up and solemnly adopted this resolution: 
"Resolved, That upon landing on the shores of the New 
World, we will live according to the laws of God, until we 
have time to frame a better." In there propounding some 
sentiment, I think it was Evarts who said of their Pilgrim 
fathers, that "when they landed on Plymouth Rock, they first 
fell upon their knees, and next upon the aborigines." Then 
too, some speaker told this story as illustrating the Far South 
view of the achievements of the New Englanders: Bishop 
Green, of Mississippi, was in Boston attending some official 



268 Recollections 

function of his Ciiurdi, when his brethren of the cloth es- 
corted him down to see famed Plymouth Rock. They grew 
enthusiastic and eloquent in recounting the doings of the Pil- 
grim fathers and the great good which had come to the civil- 
ized world therefrom, when, some good brother was brought 
back to earth by the fact that in and through all this talk 
Bishop Green had never once opened his lips. Commenting 
upon this silence, the home talent finally induced Bishop Green 
to say that "if one slight change had been there made when 
the Pilgrims landed on that rock, America would thereby have 
been spared a vast amount of slander, scandal, and bickering." 
He was at once anxiously asked : "What change w as that, 
Bishop?" And to this he slowly responded: "If instead of 
the Pilgrims landing en this rock, Plymouth Rock had then but 
landed on the Pilgrims." To each and all of these Wilder 
only laughed and said: "Maybe so; maybe so; just like them." 
When I was exhibiting the menu of this banquet, how- 
ever. Wilder got his innings : After each item of the many 
good things to eat and drink on the bill of fare, there was 
printed a quotation from some well-known writer, and down 
near its close and. at the heading "Cheese" came this : "And 
then comes cheese, which digests every thing and is, in turn, 
by wine digested. — Shakespeare." Now, I had always taken 
it for granted that in some of the writings of the "immortal 
Bard of Avon" these lines appeared, and was not prepared 
for Wilder's speedy correction in the words: "Shakespeare 
never wrote that, nor anything approaching it." I insisted 
that this great master knew and wrote, in some form or other, 
the world's wisdom and knowledge ; that this was a good sen- 
tence and .true, and that if Shakespeare didn't say it, he should 
have done so. To all this Wilder agreed, but again said: 
"Shakespeare never said that; go to that Concordance of his 



Journalists 269 

works in my library here, run down all you can find under 
the head of 'Cheese,' and you will find out I am right." I at 
once followed his direction, with the result that to this good 
hour I don't know who did write that line, but it did not come 
from Shakespeare, and, as usual. Wilder was right. 

Newspaper men have many wise saws, and among them 
that for one to make a success in that field he must first have 
"a good nose for news." I must possess this attribute in 
high degree, for I never hear of nor get my hands on a good 
news item that I don't want to trek ofif to a print shop at once 
and have the dope put in cold type. My respect for and ap- 
preciation of printers' ink and its many virtues in preserving 
the good thoughts of the world are well known. Back m 
his native State of Kentucky, I have been told that Tom Mar- 
shall would never consent that any one of his many great talks 
should be printed. No mere spell-binder can ever afford to 
have this done, for somebody may read and recall his words. 
Hei goes about, makes many speeches, paws the air, says noth- 
ing worth while ; his hearers listen to his voice, watch his gest- 
ures, nudge each other, and say, "What a great speech!" 
and straightway that same loud howler goes into the next 
township or county and electrifies his audiences by the same 
old talk. No wonder he is always against the print shop. 
That sort of thing never appealed to me, while the printer- 
man always looked good and big. So when my good friend 
Wilder w^ote me a colossal thought some years ago, I asked 
his permission to hand it to the printer, but, with his usual 
modesty, he said, "No," 

Again, some years ago I mailed to him a printed copy 
■of the marvelously interesting paper written and read by our 
valued friend, Thomas Adams Witten, on Munkacsy's "Christ 
on Calvary." In returning his grateful thanks for and high 



270 Recollections 

appreciation of this paper, which he says "makes old things 
look new and strange," in a sort of semi-religious refrain. 
Wilder adds this: 

"You and I never talked about creeds, I believe. My 
own position favors the higher criticism and is revolution- 
ary. Hut, in the Presence, I still get down on my knees 
and veil my face. So did our good master Shakespeare, in 
many and many a devout and inspired line. We believe in 
modern criticism, but the spirit of reverence and devotion re- 
mains untouched. Matthew Arnold's best sentence is this: 
'1 believe in the Power Eternal, not ourselves, that makes 
for righteousness.' In your bones you are John Knox and 
I John Calvin, in spite of the infamies in their creeds. (By 
the way, the fatal political blow to the 'divine right' of kings 
and princes was struck by these teachers of the brotherhood 
of man.) But you and I are moved by a warmer, finer, higher 
spirit that came upon men after the birth, life, and death of 
the God of Galilee. 

"By the way, from much tumbling of lexicons, I have 
come to the conclusion that no great man was ever born ex- 
cept circa — about such a year or century : That word follows 
the great names in the cyclopaedias and attests their heroic 
figure. We do not know when Christ was born. How his 
words got themselves reported, written, no scholar has told me. 
Shakespeare was not well and really known in his time. Near 
ly a hundred years elapsed before he found even a feeble 
biographer. Emerson says it took three hundred years for 
mankind to know Shakespeare. Lincoln lived in the bright 
light tliat beats upon a throne, but not a single American 
knew him until he too went up Mount Calvary. 

"To come down to much smaller men, a good diction- 
ary, and then the best English one, was published in the reign 
of Queen Anne and made by 'N. Bailey.' I have an old copy, 
my fatlier's. The last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica 
does not know when Bailey was born nor what name 'N' stands 
for. Cruel, but according to rule and a law that cannot be 
repealed." 

Now, I have in my library at home a copy of Bailey's 
rare Dictionary that was given to me; and by twenty-nine 



Journalists 271 

years it antedates the publication of Johnson's Dictionary. 
Scholars say the latter was the first Dictionary printed, but 
it wasn't. The above is the good stuff I wanted to print, but 
read on and it is seen how and why Wilder refused: 

"Yesterday I asked a favor of you. To-day you ask 
one of nie. Is it gracious to deny you? 

"Well, many thoughts remain unspoken ; they are told 
only to a friend, and then almost unconsciously. It would 
cause pain to have them made public. 

'But what binds us, friend to friend, 
But that soul with soul can blend ?' 

"I 'm an old man now and don't deserve it. Such a 
lingerer will soon be toppled over, and find no fault. The 
youthful soldier of Lincoln can then take my stuff' to the print- 
er, if he then values it." 

Up to date I did not carry this rich storehouse to the 
printer; but I '11 chance it now. 

In the hearing of Wilder and other good fellows of our 
Shakespeare Club, in 1895, I had read my paper on Hamlet's 
insanity. After going over my matter again not long ago, 
Web thus writes me: 

"Lately I have reread 'Is Hamlet Insane?' (How much 
life is added by using 'is' instead of 'was'!) with solid, com- 
forting satisfaction. Whether we like or not the goal reached, 
we have enjoyed the journey, the illuminated progress. I do 
not dislike the conclusion. The play of 'Hamlet' is a hundred 
interrogation marks. Each question absorbs the thinking 
works of the finest intellects. No two agree on the answer. 
All are fascinated with the study. Each century, every scholar 
enlarges, adorns the subject of the investigation. An age 
that does not hereafter enlarge and deepen the meaning of 
'Hamlet' will be a dark age returned. 

"The only Shakespeare critic quoted by you is a good one,. 
Hudson, an American. His judgments have stood the test 
of half a century. During the year I have read two Shake- 
speare books, Dowden and Brandes. Dowden quotes Hud- 



272 Recollections 

son more frequently than any other critic. Brandes approves 
of Dowden. The American clergyman, of the Episcopal- 
ian faith, blazed the way. to a considerable extent, for both 
of them. 

•'The multifarious learning of Brandes is amazing As 
one English statesman said of another: 'His weakness is 
omniscience.' All through Dowden, you can see that he is 
a good fellow ; a frank, square man whom you would be glad 
to know. Brandes knows, apparently, all languages and 
literatures ; when a play was written, what it is based upon, 
and its likeness or unlikeness to some English, Spanish, Greek, 
Latin or East Indian production. And he follows Shake- 
speare into places that you and I would not go, and that Shake- 
speare never did. But this Hebrew, born in Denmark, has 
to be looked over. I think our Emerson and Lowell and the 
English Coleridge, Lamb, and Hazlitt are the men who best 
see the greatness and goodness of the most marvelous of all 
authors. To read them makes you hopeful helpful, radiant. 

"I like your legal definitions. Coke, Blackstone, and the 
decisions. It gives the reader something solid to stand on; 
not the, guess of a literary 'smart Aleck.' If you could have 
given a citation from Braxton or Plowden, or gotten in i 
simile from the rule in Shelley's case, or the statute of frauds, 
I should have felt still more pleased and confident. (I have 
not seen one of those names in print in forty years and may 
have misspelled them all — to show my learning!) 

"Your view is new; it holds and refreshes the reader. So 
much criticism of books is mere speculation by persons vho 
know not the world, know not men, could not make a log- 
ical speech, and would be driven out of court by a wise, clear- 
headed judge. 

"Your great page and your original view and argument 
is page two, although the whole statement has the same con- 
sistency. I wish there was a bookful of this fresh, enlight- 
ening criticism. It is good and clean work. The book would 
have a constant sale to those of good minds, delighting in let- 
ting the sun shine in dark places. 

"I shall read it again and again and lend it to appreci- 
ative people. 

"I must fold and seal this now. Ah ! what lines! what 
a master ! 'Absent thee from felicity awhile.' What a noble 
age' they lived in! How triumphant over time and death !" 



Journalists 273 

Away back in the days of the Nazarene, and on down to 
Calvin, Knox, Shakespeare, Cromwell, et ai, the principal ob- 
jects of our ancestors were war, religion, and robbery. Of 
old it was the thing to hang or burn one for differing from 
the views of the powers that be, and especially on religious 
questions. Of course, they were oftener wrong than right. 
Calvin was a lawyer, more than a priest, and four hundred 
years ago, almost alone, he established religious liberty, and 
for the priest substituted conscience. So he may be forgiven 
now for burning Servetus, for he only executed the order of 
the times. No doubt this was the thought in Wilder's mind 
in writing me about these matters. 

Because both Wilder and Van Horn had been hard-work- 
ing, close-thinking newspaper men on the firing-line of our 
Western frontier for so many years, when I received a letter 
from the former, early in this year, I remailed it to the Colo- 
nel, who was then down in Florida. Without tiie knowledge 
or consent of either, I take the liberty of reproducing in these 
Recollections the letters of both. Wilder then wrote: 

"Hiawatha, Kas., January 27, 1909. 
"My dear Judge: 

"Your pleasant letter of more than a month ago was duly 
received and gladly read, as they always are ; but I am still 
tied down to drudgery and have been again visited by the grip. 

"A gripper is a person who has a poor body, a calomel 
mind, and no head at all. You are greatly blessed by living 
with delightful friends, friends who have known each other 
for years, whose minds are superior and who are genial, jo- 
vial, and full of sympathy for each other. It is a joy that has 
no equal as we travel through this alleged vale of tears. On 
a range or in a small settlement these rare blessings cannot 
be reached. Where is John Binns, the sailor who sat in a dun- 
geon on a ship, could see nothing but deadest darkness, and 
yet talked by lightning with other ships, stayed in his cellar, 



274 Recollections 

flashed his fire out of nothing through black darkness, and 
save<l the Hves of hundreds of men, women, and children? 

"My dear Judge, you have had a fearful struggle to go 
through, but now you are again meeting Robert T. Van Horn 
and Senator Johnson Clark, and there is no better company 
than that. My grip attacks are nothing when compared with 
the attack you had. Mine disabled me in mind and body. 
But I do not grumble. It is one of the ways of killing time 
and a man. Please give my love to the veterans. 

"We do not meet often here, but the ages of union are 
eternal. Love to you all. D. W. Wilder." 



Poets 275 



VIII. 



Poets. 

Nothing is recalled that would at this moment afford me 
more genuine pleasure than to say some words of my own 
concerning each of my poet friends. To the world they ap- 
pear reckless, careless, inconsequent, Bohemian; yet in fact 
all are strong, manly. 

Charles Graham Halpine. This Irish gentleman and 
scholar came to America before our Civil War and for a time 
was a forceful writer on the New York Tribune under Greeley. 
Then, during the spring of 1864, he was for a time my assist- 
ant adjutant-general, when General David Hunter was in 
command of the Department of West Virginia, and there I 
knew him. Soon after closing his exceptionally useful ca- 
reer as a soldi?r of his adopted country. General Halpine was 
made City Register of New York, and died in that city, at 
the age of tliirty-nine, in the year 1868. 

The following year, his old friend, Robert B. Roosevelt, 
printed in a book which he edited, many of the poems of my 
old friend, and a copy of this volume I have ever since had in 
my home library. On its front fly-leaf I long ago noted the 
above facts and then wrote: "He was brilliant, witty, genial, 
and social m camp, wise and sagacious in council, brave in 
battle, yet kind-hearted and gentle as a woman, and, as he 
richly deserved to be, was the most popular officer m our 
Army." Most of his writings in verse appear over his nom 



276 Recollections 

dc plume of "Private Miles O'Reilly" ; and an hour with that 
book is always refreshing. Halpine's "J^^^^tte's Hair" is to 
me his most beautiful poem, "We 've Drunk from the Same 
Canteen" his most popular, while his "Farewell to Club Com- 
panions" is the most characteristic 

James Whitcomb Riley is another rare bird whom I 
have often met; but the one instance of his Bohemian days 
that always brings a smile was a story I heard long ago : As 
a blind sign-painter, Jim once passed current in his native 
State ; was then led about towns by a friend, who took orders 
for work while Jim did the talking. With orders all taken, 
and the funds therefor in his pockets, this "blind man" then 
mounted the painter's scaffold and in short order had mer- 
chants' signs and even dwellings decorated to the Queen's 
taste. 

Years back I traveled eastward, and for some now for- 
gotten reason stopped over a train at Indianapolis with a 
St. Louis friend. Together we repaired to the old Bates 
House bar (for ice-water, of course, the weather being hot), 
and there pointing out a table in one corner of the room, this 
friend said: "Do you know Jim Riley? Well, sir, two years 
ago I stopped here just as we have to-day for only an hour, 
and happened to meet Riley right over there at that table ; and 
do you know, sir, I didn't get away from him for three days?" 

In July, 1882, my wife and I spent a v^eek at Indianap- 
olis in visiting old friends, and Riley was then a modest, ob- 
scure, editorial writer on some up-State paper, without fame 
or fortune. While we were there, the Journal of that city- 
one morning printed a little poem called "The Ole Swimmin' 
Hole" over the name of Benj. F. Johnson, but written by 
Riley. To me, as a country-bred chap, these verses seemed 



Poets 277 

unusually good, and I clipped and still have them. Then the 
papers throughout that State fell to wondering in their col- 
umns as to the real name of the writer, and at last some coun- 
try editor down in the woods gravely announced himself as 
the John the Baptist of the series of inquiries in the printed 
statement that this poem was in fact written by "Benjamin F. 
Johnson, of Boone." Riley had the time of his life in repro- 
ducing in .the Journal all this kindly criticism, but the alleged 
discovery so struck his funny bone that he adopted the name 
and the next year afterwards printed his first Hoosier dialect 
poems with the title: "The Ole Swimmin' Hole, and Leven 
More Poems," by "Benj. F. Johnson, of Boone." 

In 1888 Riley and Bill Nye, who were then running to- 
gether, lectured in this city, Riley reading his own poems in 
the main and Nye doing the humorous. While I recall the 
incident perfectly, yet I never knew just how it all happened 
until this year. We had here for years an apple-vender who 
kept somewhere concealed about his person a laugh that could 
be heard for many blocks, and when he laughed everybody 
else joined in because they couldn't help it. His name was 
George Oswold, and to disconcert Nye and have some fun 
with him, his old friend and mme. Colonel Harry A. Bender, 
employed George to attend the lecture and laugh at Nye's 
every sentence. Nye had hardly commenced his talk when 
Oswold laughed, and out of sheer spmpathy everybody joined 
in. Nye was knocked ofif his feet by the applause, but finally 
went on, when George again broke loose, as did the entire 
audience. When quiet was at last restored, Nye looked down 
at Oswold and said : "Ah ! I see there are two of us here." 
James Whitcomb Riley is often referred to as "the Bobby 
Burns of America" and deserves the compliment, for he has 



278 Recollfcctions 

written many beautiful and touching verses, but to me nothing 
more so than his "Clover." 

Eugene Field in his time might have posed as the Amer- 
ican King of Bohemia, for he was always loaded and never 
once missed fire. The days and the nights which I long ago 
spent with him here in Missouri will long be remembered. 
He had learning and wisdom, soul and sentiment, and never 
lacked for either a friend or a word or a verse. 

Abram J. RvAN was called "the poet priest of the South," 
for when first 1 knew him, he had been the chaplain of a Con- 
federate regiment, was intensely Southern, and had already 
commenced to write verses, and everybody loved the man 
whose strong face, wondrous eyes, long curling hair, and 
priestly garb attracted every beholder. 

In the summer of 1865 we met at his lecture at the old 
Mozart Hall in Cincinnati. The press then said he was the 
first Southern man to deliver a lecture north of the Mason 
and Dixon line for the benefit of the widows and orphans of 
the Union soldiers who had laid down their lives in the 
Southland , but that was Ryan. 

The day I clipped Ryan's greatest poem, "I Often Won- 
der Why 'Tis So," a learned physician friend, named Dr. 
Robert D. King, of Hamilton, Mo., was called in at my request 
to treat a near neighbor of mine at Gallatin, who was very 
ill. This Doctor was a man of wide reacHng, strong and 
capable as both physician and surgeon, and he and I spent 
all that night in talk, and the basis ol it all was Ryan's then 
latest poem. T was first attracted to Dr. King by his curious 
professional country advertisement in 1^67, for he then had 
the nerve to use in print this closing: "Charges high, cures 
uncertain." In ihe-e nnes of his. Ryan takes up and dis- 



Poets 279 

cusses every phase of human life, and years afterward ex- 
plained to me that they were written after he and other party 
friends had worked with a like committee of Republicans 
to pour oil on the troubled political waters prevailing at one 
time in reconstruction days down at his home in Mobile, Ala- 
bama. After days and nights of constant work, their joint 
efforts won and peace was restored. Then Ryan sought his 
couch, fresh from the bath, but neither slumber nor sleep 
ca-.-.ie until he got up and wrote these lines just as they were 
printed. Speaking of Mobile reminds me that I have often 
eaten, just across the street from the old Battle House there, 
the most delicious broiled oysters and the most piquant sauce, 
served in a hot and big oyster shell, that I ever tasted. 
Neither a cook nor a gourmand. I still love good things to eat, 
and. like Ryan, have often wondered "why" such oysters and 
sauce are never served elsewhere; but they are not. 

Ryan delivered a lecture at Gallatin along in the early 
'80s, and next morning, while waiting together for a belated 
train, we two had our last long talk, for he found that rest 
for which he always sighed in 1886. He then agreed with 
me that his "Song of the Mystic" pleased more people than 
his "Conquered Banner"; but when I said it had always 
seemed to me that his poem "Their Story Runneth Thus" 
was the unfinished romance of his own life, the good priest 
turned his great eyes full into mine and said: "So it is, sir; 
so it is; but after I am gone the sequel will be printed, and 
you may then know all about it, as one complete story." I 
I have often wondered why that promised sequel was not 
printed, but up to this dnte it has not appeared. 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox grows wiser and writes better 
and looks lovelier as the years go by. In New York we once 



280 Recollections 

talked for an hour, and, while a great and good conversation- 
alist, it then seemed certain that the world would yet come 
to read, know, and appreciate her more. 

Walt Whitman. If this gentle man ever gave one 
thought t ) whence he came, or when, where, or how he would 
go. I never knew it ; for I did not inquire, nor did he volun- 
teer the information. He was rather a serious, dreamy sort, 
and through liis written pages the world of lettters knew him 
long before our Civil War. Throughout that struggle he 
thought much, wrote some, and talked little, mainly because 
he loved that sort of a game; but for his daily bread he some- 
times nursed sick soldiers in our hospitals and sometimes 
drove a hack around Washington, and it was there we first 
met. The last I heard from liim, he was over in New Jersey, 
wrestling with a mild form of paralysis and simply waiting. 
But the great unknown became liis in 1892. 

From 1 86 1 to that fatal day in April, 1865, few men 
either knew better or more highly appreciated the work of 
the great Lincoln ; and no man living or dead loved the grave 
thoughtful "Captain, My Captain" more tenderly than did 
this "good gray poet." 

Whitman's writings are not widely read by the misses, 
because his thoughts and theories are beyond them ; but the 
time will come when his "Leaves of Grass," his "Two Riv- 
ulets," "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed," and 
other writings will be read, studied, and understood. 

Joaquin Miller. His real name is Cincinnatus Henri 
Miller, and Joaquin was chosen as his pagan name years later, 
maybe because it is shorter and sounds better in the land 
where the sun goes down. Anyway, he was born in Indiana 
in 1841, taken thence by his parents to Oregon when a small 



Poets 2S1 

boy, went down into Nicaragua with the Walker expedition 
in 1856, returned, and in his Western home read law with 
George H. Wilhams, the last survivor of Grant's Cabinet and 
a most distinguished jurist, and afterwards there for four 
years administered justice with one copy of the Oregon stat- 
utes and a pair of six-shooters ; then printed his first book, 
called "Songs of the Sierras," in 1872, and from that volume 
has spread out until his fame now circles the globe. 

I am noting him last among my poet friends, for the 
reason that, of living Americans, he is to me the greatest and 
the best verse-maker of them all. Emerson excepted, our 
good Xew Englan.l poets to me suggest ready-made cloth- 
ing; but among our people, for many a year to come, one name 
must head the list — Edgar Allan Poe. 

Not long after the publication of his first book, Joaquin 
Miller located at the nation's capital, and on Jefferson (Me- 
ridian) Heights, up on a hill near that city, constructed his fa- 
mous, quaint, old-timey log cabin. One of the red-letter even- 
ings of my life) was then passed in the old National Hotel 
at Washington with Joaquin, Elizabeth Bryant Johnston, 
General John B. Gordon, Olive Logan, and Kate Field, long 
ago. Joaquin's cabin was then located on the exact spot 
where President Jefferson had once established the American 
meridian and erected a hewn stone post, with a melted Span- 
ish milled dollar run into a round hole in its top, to mark that 
point. When he bought the ground, Joaquin knew all about 
the long past history of the transaction, but could net find 
the post. So he traced it from one point to another down 
on the Potomac and back to the city, and after a world of 
trouble, found this ancient land-mark doing ignoble duty as 
a hitching-post at a hospital ! He then restored the post at 



282 Kecollections 

its initial location, but neither his visitors at the cabin nor 
his surroundings at the capital suited the tastes or habits of 
the poet soul, and Joaquin removed to and built another 
cabin on his lands near Oakland in California. While in 
San Francisco in later years, I wanted to accept his standing 
invitation to visit him for a few days at this home and regret 
now that I was always (or thought myself) too busy to do so; 
but that was mere personal flattery; a hundred years hence, a 
week's time won't matter. In directing me how and where to 
find his present mountain home, Joaquin always said he lived 
on "the Heights, two miles up and three miles back" from the 
town of Oakland. In one of his "Little Journeys" that Heine 
of America whom all know as Elbert Hubbard, the owner, 
editor, and publisher of The Philistine, wrote up his visit to 
the haunts and licme of Joaquin Miller, and if he never 
writes another line, that masterful description of man and 
place should make Hubbard immortal. 

The last good long visit we had torether was i i March, 
1889, at the old Willard Hotel in Washington. James Whit- 
comb Riley was with us for a few days, and we three sat at 
the same table. At breakfast and again at lunch one day I 
missed both; but at dinner they came in, blithe, happy, even 
gay. Joaquin explained their absence this way: That morn- 
ing's paper had announced the th n :^erious illness of th r 
friend Rudyard Kipliig; thinking him surely dying, t' e two 
had spent the day up in Joaquin's room, under lock and key, 
reading Kipling's works and crying like children over his cer- 
tain death ; but the papers on that evening said he was bet- 
ter and would recover, and it was this good news that made 
both radiantly happy. Now, I had read all of Kipling's writ- 
ings and, aside from a few of his really strong things, didn't 
have an exalted opinion of his stuff. But their great solici- 



Poets 283 

tude and sorrow made me know that I had underestimated 
both the man and his books, and on their account I later re- 
read them all with better spirit and higher appreciation. 

In their Bohemian days both Miller and Riley had known 
and loved John Hay, who was then Secretary of State; they 
always spoke of him as ''Little Breeches," and urged me to go 
with them and call upon him. But I was busy on a brief, and 
the two went alone, just like two boys. Crestfallen, glum, 
and unhappy, they soon returned, and I said: "Hello! Have 
you two called on 'Little Breeches' so soon?" Slowly, solemn- 
ly, and bitterly Joaquin answered: "Several foreign diplo- 
mats were, in waiting, but on our cards we two were prompt- 
ly admitted ; no, we didn't see 'Ijttle Breeches' ; he is gone, and 
in his place sat the damned cold, stately premier !" Poor John 
Hay ! In younger years so bright and good that his closest 
friends knew him as a part of the salt of the earth ; yet in 
growing, as he did. into the greatest statesman and diplomat 
of his age, he became so cold in his utter absorption in public 
affairs as to lead those friends to the conclusion that he had 
adopted the cynical theory: "The more I know men, the 
better I like dogs." 

One night in my rooms at the hotel. Joaquin was in rem- 
iniscent mood and had just returned from his old cabin home 
up on Meridian Heights. He knew my familiarity with that 
part of the city in the old days, and that I had seen how the 
city engineer was then destroying the natural beauty of the 
place by running all streets through these Heights on a plane. 
So he seriously asked what I thought of the way the hills 
were being cut down for streets. "My judgment is that it is 
a piece of damned vandalism," I replied. He arose, came 
across the room, grasped my hand, and said : "Thank God, 
there are still two men on earth who retain their senses ; you 



2S4 Recollections 

are one of them ; modesty prevents me from naming the 
other." 

Joaquin then knew that I had read his many books and 
quoted stanzas of some of his poems that to me seemed good 
and strong beyond others. So on this great night he mentioned 
as a fact that he was then engaged on a new work, and said 
tiiat when this was done and read, I would know he had never 
before written anything that was worth while or ought to live. 
I innocently asked: "What is your line, Joaquin?" He fixed 
his gaze on me, and, apropos to nothing so far as I saw at the 
moment, asked: "Say, Boy, when a little chap, did you ever 
rob a bird's nest?" Without shame I confessed that I not 
only had, but had also tlien committed every other misde- 
meanor thought of by a red-blooded and healthy country boy. 
"Well, then, you must know," he said, "that after you had 
once put your little hand in on her eggs in the nest, the old 
mother bird never afterward paid any attention to either nest 
or eggs. So, too, it is with my work. If I should now tell 
anyone just what I am working on, I would have to turn to 
something else, for I would myself at once lose all interest in 
that work." 

Joaquin Miller has long believed, as I have, that Moses 
was the grandest character in all history, sacred or profane, 
and he is the only man on earth to erect a monument solely 
to the memory of that wondrous personage. This he once de- 
scribed to me, as on the Heights just above Oakland, a tall, 
stately marble shaft with but the single word "MoSEs" carved 
on its face. He knew that I had made a speech on "Moses 
and Lincoln," and this, with several other things of mine, he 
wanted. So he wrote out and signed the list of all these, and 
at its closing placed the date, "March 9, '99." By this time 
it was three o'clock in the morning and neither his eyes nor 



Poets 285 

mine were the eyes of a boy. Without glasses, he looked long 
and earnestly at that date, and then said: "Say, Boy, there 
are a hell of a lot of nines." 

LikQ most big men, Joaquin Miller recognizes the wide 
difference between brains and bluster, knows that lightning 
may kill, but thunder only frightens ; and wisely discriminates 
between those who "set and think" and the others who only 
"set." He knows, too, that change, advance, progress, are in 
the air and what one believes to-day may be cast aside on the 
morrow ; that books and things are read largely by those who 
cannot think without the printed page before their eyes ; and 
so, when he feels the need of a real good book, or essay, or 
sermon, or prayer, he writes it himself, and then knows it is 
right and suits him. 

Just why he calls me "Boy" I never knew, for he is only 
a trifle my senior in years; but when alone he never spoke 
to me in any other way. I 've long been fond of old Joaquin 
inside and out, from his onw graying locks and heavy whisk- 
ers down to his Western boot-heels, and regret that we do not 
meet oftener. 



286 Recollections 



IX. 



A Few Others Worth While. 

Harry A. Bender, Kansas City, Missouri. For many 
years this rare, yet strangely genial, sagacious, and wise bus- 
iness man of the wide world has spent much of his time at 
Excelsior Springs, Missouri, and there we met and together 
have walked and talked. A confirmed bachelor, Bender 
dreads publicity, and fears a woman and a reporter; but 
within our long acquaintance, without either reserve or boast, 
he has given me some of the facts relating to his eventful life, 
and at the risk of his dire displeasure I now piece these to- 
gether in a connected story : 

At an early age, Bender was left an orphan and, like any 
other piece of driftwood on life's tempestuous sea, became a 
nerwsboy and bootblack on the streets of St. Louis during the 
Civil War. There he happened one day to hear a great speech 
by George B. Burnett, which determined his course, for he 
thereupon resolved to become an educated man and a public 
speaker, and did both. 

As an independent speculator he next went on the St. 
Louis Board of Trade, and when, at the close of a spectacular 
plunge, its most-talked-of member, old Mose Fraley, failed 
for more than ten millions of dollars. Bender took down three 
millions on that deal, cashed in his earnings, put his money 
in solvent banks, closed his deals, and quit the game. Largely 



A Few Others W^orth While 287 

to get beyond the temptations of the stock market, Bender 
then had tlie good sense to abandon the field, journey across 
the waters, and spend the next five years of his hfe in travel 
and study in foreign lands. Except for a little "flyer" which 
he took in copper some years back, he has never speculated one 
dollar's worth from the day of his big winning to this. 

While abroad there, through his brokers he bought up 
the old home farm upon which he was born over in Illinois, 
and through the scholars and bookmen of the world bought 
one hundred copies each of the best historical and philosoph- 
ical books of every country on the face of the globe. These, 
witli the ancient and current literature of earth, purchased by 
men who knew, to-day go to make up his library on that farm. 
While I know nothing of all this, save the catalogue, yet I do 
not doubt that Bender's collection forms the most extensive 
and best selected private library in the world. He construct- 
ed a large, fireproof library building on his farm, and these 
books are all there now, in the keeping of a veteran care- 
taker. 

Some years ago, in a railroad wreck out on the Pacific 
Coast, many of the passengers lost tlieir lives and were solemn- 
ly interred by the generous inhabitants of the town. A young 
traveler was in the act of registering his name at the village 
hotel when the cortege returning from the cemetery passed 
by, and he inquired into the matter. The obliging clerk gave 
him all the particulars of the wreck, the number of the victims 
and their appearance, and addend that among them was a well- 
dressed young man who wore on the lapel of his coat a pin of 
som.e secret order exactly like the one worn by the traveler. 
The stranger hastily said : "That pin contains an inscription 
giving the location and number of his lodge; that man must 
also have people and be somebody somewhere ; his body must 



28S Recollections 

be exhumed and brought here at once, and by wire I will no- 
tify his people of all obtainable facts." All this was done. 
When the supposed victim returned to consciousness, twenty- 
one days later, there about his bed in that hotel stood his fra- 
ternal "brother," and also his only brother and sister — it was 
Bender! Pronounced dead and actually buried. Bender had 
sufifered a severe shock which suspended animation, but was 
rescued from his grave by that faithful stranger and restored 
to family and friends. He was many months in recovering, 
but the shock had turned the brown hair and moustache to 
snowy white. Bender's luck, however, followed him; years 
later he< had a severe attack of smallpox, every hair in his 
head came out, but grew in again as brown as ever! It 's all 
frosted now, for my friend is no longer a boy. 

Several times within the past twenty years Bender has 
been near death's door, and his attending physicians have as 
often assured him that he must either submit to a surgical op 
eration or cross "the great divide." But his faith in the heal- 
ing properties of the mineral waters over at Excelsior Springs 
never once forsakes him. He prefers a natural death any- 
way, so he always waives the knife and advice aside, is taken 
to some hotel at the Springs, and so far has always been re- 
stored to perfect health. So may it be for many long years. 
In business, Bender's motto has always been: "I '11 look 
after my side of the deal ; the other side may look after theirs." 
That 's why his millions are to-day intact ; but no man can be 
more generous to his friends. In politics and religion he is a 
free lance, and nothing gratifies him more than to say and do 
exactly as he pleases. Sometimes he is a Mugwump and 
again a Democrat. The next day after our last general elec 
tion, when Taft was sent to the White House and Herbert S. 
Hadley to the Governor's mansion down at Jefiferson City, I 



A Few Others Worth While 289 

received from Bender a letter written at the Saratoga Hotel 
in Excelsior Springs, making this pathetic inquiry: 

"Say, is it tru 
That Taft pulled thru, 
And Hadley too? 
Say, is it that 
Which makes a Democrat 
So dam blu?" 

Henry Boggess, Marion County, West Virginia, was 
born in Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1793, and died at his 
home in 1891, ninety-eight years old. He was my mother's 
father, and while not in the limelight all the years of his life, 
yet he had been a farmer, merchant, county judge, teacher, 
preacher, and through it all lived on a farm and died as "a 
country gentleman," as had all of his ancestors as far as 
traceable. 

The first of the name whom I can run down with any de- 
gree of certainty was Robert Boggess, of Fairfax, but whe i 
or where he was born I never knew, nor just when he died. 
Indeed, about all I know to th.- credit of this early-day Vir 
ginia planter, who was the grandfather of my grandfather, is 
that, as still shown by the early court records, he was indict 
ed ("presented" they politely called it then), along with t'l .■ 
immortal George Washington and some other planters of 
Fairfax County in 1760, for failing to return to the assesso- 
for taxation their "wheeled vehickles." So he must have 
belonged to the gentry of his day, and no doubt drove his own 
pleasure carriages, drank his own liquor, ran horse-races, 
fought cocks, chased the elusive fox, and generally conducted 
himself as other gentlemen of his country and time. He had a 
son named Henry Boggess (born May 7, 1736), who intermar- 
ried with a lady of that county of the name of Mary Ann 
Lindsay. One of this Mary Ann's ancestors is named by 



290 Recollections 

King James, in his second charter to the Virginia Colony in 
1609, as "Captain Richard Lindsey," and soon thereafter 
located upon the James River. The Lindsay family name 
is spelled fifty-seven different ways, but all the clan that came 
to America were originally from the lowlands of Scotland, 
near tlie ancient city of Aberdeen. 

Enthusiastic Lindsays run this branch of our family back 
to 40 B. C, but to me the claim seems a mere trace until we 
strike the blazed trail of 1032, and from that time on the fam- 
ily roadwa}- is clear and plain. This Henry and Mary Ann 
Lindsay Boggess, among their ten children, had a son whom 
they named Lindsay, and this grandfather of mine was the 
eldest of the latter's nine children. This Lindsay Bogges^ 
lived on his plantation in Fairfax County in the earlier years 
of his married life, and there my grandfather was born, 
within the sound of the Great Falls of the Potomac, above 
Washington. 

When I was a boy, as well as later, Grandfather ofte^ 
told me of the mill at the Falls and the canal and its locks con- 
structed around these Falls in 1785 under the personal direc- 
tion of George Washington. 

In the old days I had visited on the Maryland side of the 
Falls by way of the old canal, but lately there has been estab- 
lished a trolley line on the Virginia side of this river. Two 
years ago, I took this trolley, and hard by the Falls had no 
difficulty in locating the site and the ruins of General Wash- 
ington's old mill, his canal, the old Dickey mansion, and the 
ruins of the Boggess ancestral home. But curiously strange 
to me, no one thareabouts could tell me about George's canal 
locks, noi much else concerning the Colonial history of the 
place. From repeated statements of facts known only to the 
olden-timers, however, the solid stone masonry of the old 



A Few Others Worth While 291 

locks around the Falls were at last found just as the Father 
of his country built them over one hundred and twenty years 
before, and civil engineers now say that no architect, engi- 
neer, or builder could to-day do a better job. 

Near the mouth of Difficult Creek just below the Falls, 
our George then located and boomed a town once called Ma- 
tildasville; but it is all overgrown with trees and vines now, 
and nothing remains of that once populous place 'save its ruins. 
This creek still bears its Colonial name, and the woods be- 
tween it and Drainsville, in X'irginia. are still called "Terra- 
pin Woods"; no native knows why, but this is the reason: 
An erratic old British sea captain once spent a few months 
in visiting Lord Fairfax, before that worthy removed from 
near the Falls to Greenway Court over in the Shenandoah 
Valley, and then called that country "Terrapin Woods" be- 
cause he there found more land terrapin than he had ever 
seen before, and he then suggestively named this creek "Dif- 
ficult" because he attempted to cross it when both he and 
the creek were "full." Sensible, always. 

About a century ago, Lindsay Boggess removed with his 
son Henry and other members of the family from the Great 
Falls to what is now Marion County in West Virginia. There 
they located and were at the forefront in establishing old 
Gilboa Church, and there in the Boggess graveyard all that 
branch of the family sleep. That church came about in this 
way: For generations the Boggess and Lindsay Clans ha I 
been staunch Church of England people or Episcopalians; 
while my father's people were strict Presbyterians. But 
when Lindsay Boggess and my grandfather, John McDougal. 
both settled at about the same time on the waters of Dunkard 
Mill Run, they there found neither an Episcopalian nor a 
Presbyterian; their widely scattered frontier neighbors were 



292 Recollections 

all Methodists. The Clans Boggess and McDougal were a 
Godly people, endowed with horse sense as well as piety; 
they wisely pocketed then- inherited tendencies and preju- 
dices as to churchly affairs, worked in harmony with thei.- 
neighbors, and with tlieni then formed the first church or- 
ganization in that part of the country as Methodists. 

In the chain of title to their first home, still called "Gray's 
Flats," near that church, some dissatisfied owner of the big 
plantation once conveyed the title to all its broad acres and 
the sole consideration for the transfer was "one pair of green 
leggins." 

The first wife of Grandfather Henry Boggess was Nancy 
Dragoo (daughter of John Dragoo), and I am one of the 
sons of their only daughter, Elvira Ann. After the death 
of his first wife, Henry Boggess remarried and reared a 
large and a good family. 

This little digression may be pardoned on the ground of 
historic and family interest : The first wife of this John Dra- 
goo, together with her infant daughter and only son William, 
was captured by the Indians near the mouth of Finches Run 
in now Marion County, West Virginia, in 1786, and in their 
flight she and her infant were tomahawked and killed by 
these Indians only a few miles away, and just above where 
the town of Mannington now stands, while the son, William 
Dragoo, then aged seven, was carried on into captivity, later 
married an Indian woman, and by her had two sons and two 
daughters. 

These two sons, named John and Isaac, visited their 
father's people in Virginia in 1821. My ancestors there be- 
came well acquainted with these two half-breed Indian younj 
men (sons of my grandmother's half-brother), and Grand- 
fatlier Boggess often told me that Isaac Dragoo was the no- 



A Few Others Worth While 293 

blest natural born gentleman and the most interesting pub- 
lic speaker he ever knew. John Dragoo, Jr., died in Virginia 
in 1823, and soon thereafter, as a Methodist missionary, 
Isaac returned to and died among the people of his Indian 
mother. The second wife of John Dragoo, Sr., was Ann 
Prickett, whose father, Isaiah Prickett, with his two brothers 
Josiah and Jacob, came from Delaware, and settled at and 
built Prickett's Fort, six miles below Fairmont, where the 
town of Catawba is now situate, on the Monongahela River, 
in 1772. This Isaiah Prickett, my great-great-grandfather, 
was killed by the Indians, in a raid which they then made on 
this fort, in 1774. 

At the re-union of IMaulsby's Battery, I was East and 
made a speech on September 18, 1888, on the very site of this 
old fort, and that address was then printed in full in the 
Wheeling Intelligencer and in the Fairmont IVest Virginian. 

In 1866 I spent a day near the Great Falls of the Po- 
tomac with my grandfather's old neighbor — a Mr. Kankey, 
who was then ninety-eight years old, and had known person 
ally all the historic men 01 the Revolution in Virginia. As 
we sat there in the sunshine of his home in the hills that 
spring day, I asked this venerable man many questions con- 
cerning- tliese patriots of old, and especially of Washington, 
Jefferson, and Madison, and with his chin on his cane the ol 1 
man answered me fully and freely. For Washington as a 
far-sighted patriot and statesman, Mr. Kankey had the most 
profound respect; but of him as a neighbor and citizen, from 
Kankey I then came in possession of many facts not down in 
any history. The truth is that in private life George was 
not exactly a saint among those who knew him well, and this 
accounts for the fact that no history of Washington the man 
ever has been published, and never will be. 



294 Recoli^Ections 

Mr. Kankey had no high opinion of Thomas Jefferson 
as a statesman ; but gave him credit for being "powerful with 
the pen" when anyone else gave him an idea, while his esti- 
mate of Jefferson the lawyer was another thing. Indeed, he 
then unconsciously paid to Jefferson the highest compliment 
I have yet heard bestowed upon any lawyer. In answer to 
my direct question, Mr. Kankey then said: "No, I can't say 
I know a gruat deal about Thomas Jeft'erson as a lawyer; I 
have heard him try a lot of cases ; I have been on juries and 
heard and seen him in trials, but he never exerted himself, 
nor made a big set speech ; he didn't have to, for he zvas al- 
ways uii the right side." Mr. Kankey held in unbounded es- 
teem the character and achievements of Madison, as well as 
many other public characters of his native State, and was 
still blessed with excellent health and a great memory. In 
then listening to his great talk, I caught a glimpse of the 
men and times of the long past. But it is probable that Mr. 
Kankey drew his political prejudices from that faction of 
our earlier patriots who followeid the national policies of 
Washington and Marshall, rather than the State supremacy 
theories of Jefferson ; for throughout our country, and es- 
pecially in Virginia, the student still finds strong traces of 
these two schools of American politics. 

In all his adult life this grandfather of mine was a de- 
vout Methodist, a reader and student of the Word, and from 
my earliest recollection always read from the Book, for to him 
it was all the word of God, and held family prayers twice 
every day. How often he thus read through his old family 
Bible, or the new one in the last seven years of his life, I do 
not know ; but when he was seventy-two years old he pur- 
chased a new Bible, which is now here in my office desk, and 
in his own plain, round handwriting in this particular copy 



A Few Others Worth While 295 

are his original entries which show that between 1865 and 
1884 he so read this copy through from beginning to ending 
fourteen different times, his latest written entry being this : 
"December 20, 1884. Finished reading this book through in 
my family, morning and evening, fourteen times, from Gene- 
sis to Revelation." 

Henry Boggess was a staunch Union man throughout 
the Civil War, and died at ninety-eight, one of the most re- 
markable men of his times. His home paper then said of 
him that he was one of the ripe scholars of his day, a student 
and thinker of most tenacious memory, and added: "He 
knew as no other man did the personal history of every 
prominent man and family in the Virginias, the reasons for 
and the leaders of every political change in the history of our 
Government, and was able on the instant to recall dates, 
names, reasons, facts, and know and understood all; not on- 
ly because he read and tliought, but because he had lived 
through and was a part of all of it. Reared near Mount 
Vernon, ha often saw the great Washington, and for many 
years past he was the only person living that personally knew 
and distinctly remembered to have seen and attended the 
funeral of the Father of his country. He was a walking 
encyclopedia of our country's rise, progress, greatness, glory, 
and history; never wearied in imparting his knowledge, and 
the death of this time-worn patriot and patriarch broke the 
link which bound the present to the past." 

Albert Brisbane, Paris, France. Although a native of 
New York, for many years prior to his death in 1890 this 
eloquent, learned, traveled citizen of the world at large often 
said to me that there was but one city in the world in which 
a cultured white man ought to live, and that was Paris, in 



296 Recollections 

France. There, and there only, his wandering feet found 
rest, and he loved his home in Paris as no other spot of earth. 
His only son, Arthur Brisbane, is now making his mark 
through New York newspapers, and in time may rival his 
father in intellect, as he is now easily far ahead of him in 
practical knowledge of the world. 

When first I met him, he was far past the allotted time 
of man ; but was strong and vigorous in body and mind. He 
had then been the lawful husband of three wives and in va- 
rious countries had accumulated nearly as many concubines 
as the Book credits to the account of the sweet singer of 
Israel. His first wife was Countess Adele, with whom he 
lived for a time in Italy. Their affection for each other was 
so great as to be oppressive to both, and largely on that ac- 
count they separated. She became the wife of an Italian 
nobleman later; but their friendly visits were kept up and 
they each wrote to the other until her death, only a few years 
before his. He once made a visit to her at her chateau, dur 
ing which her Italian husband had the extreme courtesy t > 
go ofi" to the city. As they were sipping their wine alons 
one evening, in a most pathetic way, he told me of the acci- 
dental meeting of their hands upon the table. No word was 
,-])oken, until in Italian she finally asked: "O my friend, can 
any woman ever forget the father of her first-born?" 

Not many years before he sold out his interests here, a 
woman who claimed she was once his wife and said he had 
often introduced her to others in that way, brought suit in 
the Federal court for alimony. I was not his attorney, while 
my friend was. One evening Mr. Brisbane told me the 
whole story, and seeing clearly that this woman must recover 
a judgment against him, I advised a compromise, which he 
said would not cost him over two or three thousand dollars. 



A Few Others Worth WhieE ' 297 

His conduct had not been exactly circumspect and her legal 
rights were plain: So he said he would settle the matter 
the following day; but did not. Then I again urged him 
to settle th2 case quickly, and finally said: "Mr. Brisbane, 
I know the law, as well as lawyers, and am now certain that 
you have not told all the facts to Judge Dobson, for I know 
he would advise you just as I have." After some hesitation, 
he admitted that my diagnosis was correct ; but justified h'm- 
self and paid me this left-handed compliment: "No, I didn't 
tell the Judge all the facts; the truth is, I couldn't, for he is 
too nice a man!" 

Of all the great Americans Mr. Brisbane met and knew 
in his long life, he died in the firm conviction that far and 
away the biggest of them in all ways was John C. Calhoun, 
of South Carolina. On his return home from foreign lands 
in 1842, he met Calhoun, who was then in the U. S. Senate, 
For a quarter of a century Mr. Brisbane wrote a column 
in the New York Tribune, then edited by his friend Horace 
Greeley, devoted to "Social Reforms," and naturally he and 
Calhoun discussed that subject. He told me that in their 
six night discussions their conversation once turned on the 
then all-important question of negro slavery, and that in an- 
swer to an interrogatory of his, Calhoun in plain, unmistak- 
able language laid down this proposition: "As an abstract 
question, I never have, nor do I now, favor negro slavery; 
but as an American citizen, and from the position I occupy 
presumably an American statesman, I believe in and favor 
the institution of slavery in our country, and for this reason : 
The only danger which can ever threaten this or any other 
republic is that danger which may arise between capital and 
labor. Negro slavery now exists in say one half of this 
Icountry — the South. In the South, therefore, our capital 



298 • Recollections 

owns our labor, and so long as that condition exists, there 
can be no conflict between the capital and labor of that sec- 
tion of our country. But abolish slavery there, and the 
danger which 1 fear between the capital oi our country on 
the one side and our labor on the other, will first manifest 
itself in riots, strikes, and the like in the North, and this 
trouble will in time spread throughout the South and our 
whole country, as well. When that evil day comes, if it ever 
does, then farewell to a republican form of government on 
American soil, for this country will then suffer the curses of 
anarchy." This impressive recital by Mr. Brisbane of the 
gloomy yet prophetic fears of the great "nullifier" came to 
my mental vision as a sort of revelation, and I then inquire i 
what, in his judgment, would be the ultmiate result. The 
far-sighted old seer earnestly answqred : "Sir, upon that 
question I have always believed that Calhoun was both hon- 
est and right. Look at the situation : Only two decades 
have elapsed since freedom came to all American slaves. It 
was a great institution, but a greater curse, and I am gad the 
negroes are free. But the fears of Calhoun may yet be re- 
alized. This Government will outlive me; it may not exist 
always." 

After realizing fully that much of the world's wisdom 
must die with Mr. Brisbane, I urged him often to either write 
out his reminiscences or talk his life-thoughts to some friend 
and let a stenographer take it in shorthand. But he was toj 
much given to analysis to write, and many a time asked . 
"What 's the odds what I have either seen or thought ? Who 
would either read or understand.^" He was as modest as 
he was great. Finally, however, his good wife prevailed 
upon liim to talk of his life and thoughts and theories to 
her, in the gaidens of their Pans home, and these she had 



A Few Others Worth While 299 

a stenographer take down. The resuU of all this was a 
book, which was prepareil and printed by her after his death, 
entitled "Albert Brisbane: A Mental Biography." When 
]\Irs. Brisbane's materials were all in manuscript, she brought 
it to this country and to me, as one of his closest living 
friends. Together we went over all the matter in 1893, and 
while it was all interesting and good, yet it did not satisfy 
me. I recall especially the Calhoun incident of 1842, which 
I here give, and Brisbane's talk on that subject in the book 
is not at all as hq told the story to me in 1885. 

When the volume was printed, I again read it, and on 
the fly-leaves of my copy of the book then wrote two notes 
of my own recollections of the man, which are here re- 
produce 1 : 

Note i : "On January i, 1885, I removed my law 
ofBce from Gallatin, Mo., to this city, and took a suite of 
rooms, used for offices and temporary sleeping apartments, 
in Delaware Block, corner of Seventh and Delaware Streets, 
then owned by Albert Brisbane. Here I lived until the re- 
moval of my family to the new home, 2433 Troost Avenue, 
on September i, 1885. 

"My friend Judge C. L. Dobson, the attorney of Mr. 
Brisbane, hatl an office near mine on the same floor. Attract- 
ed by the splendid, thoughtful face and preoccupied manner 
of a venerable gentleman whom I often met in the building, 
in answer to an inquiry, some friend informed me that he 
was my landlord — a man of great learning, extensive travel, 
rich in mind and purse, and — a crank! That interested me; 
but, as he paid no more attention to his tenants than if they 
\vere so many wooden men, there seemed no probability 
of an acquaintance until one day both happened^ in Judge 
Dobson's office. The Judge and I were discussing foods, 
and after he had given at some length his views as to what, 
wh«n. and how one should eat, I gave him mv daily diet: 
breakfast, coffee and hot rolls, or hot corn cakes ; midday 
lunch, a bowl of soup, or a piece of pie and a glass of milk; 
and at six p. m. a good meat dinner; and I added that in many 



300 Recollections 

years had not been ill a single hour. Hearing this, Mr. 
llrisbane rose, walked rapidly to me, and warmly grasped my 
hand as he exclaimed : 'Egad ! sir, you are a wise man ; I 
want to know you, sir,' Together we went into my office, 
where he questioned me closely concerning my life, habits 
of eating, sleeping, thinking, working, etc. I had simply fal- 
len into these habits; but he, by years of study, observation, 
and reflection, had reasoned them all out, and seemed to 
me to be the absolute master of the theory of correct living. 
"This was the beginning of our friendship. In him 1 
found by far the best talker I had met ; in me he found a 
good listener, and as this always makes good friends, w; 
found the association so pleasant and interesting that during 
these eight months we spent almost every night together in 
my quarters. His rooms were just above mine on the next 
floor, and early each evening it was his custom to step into 
the hall and call to his valet : 'Eddie, bring down a bottle of 
that Bordeaux and some brown bread and butter.' These 
were promptly brought and placed between us on an office 
table, and from that time on till two and three in the morn- 
in^^, without interruption, we two were there alone, sipping 
the rare wine, nibbling the brown bread ; and such talks as he 
gave never before, in my judgment, came from the lips of 
man. With as little reserve as Rousseau gave to the world 
his 'Confessions' did Mr. Brisbane give to me the history of 
his strange career, and the latter was by far the more inter- 
esting. He had commenced travel abroad at eighteen ; spent 
about two-thirds of his eventful life in foreign lands, and left 
the imprint of mind and foot in every country and clime 
known to civilization ; had personally communed with and 
been the student or associate of the world's greatest and best 
thinkers and had walked and talked with the world's rare and 
radiant men and women who had lived during the past si-x- 
ty years. The languages, history, literature, poetry, music, 
philosophy, arts, and sciences of the wide world were his; 
and better than all the men and women to whom I have 
listened and after whom I have read did he know how to 
impart and make plain to the unlearned and untraveled his 
encyclopediacal knowledge. To me this rare gift is one of 
the tests of greatness. He accepted the theory of neither 
God nor man nor woman upon any given proposition ; but, 



A Few Others Worth While 301 

like the one great pioneer of thought that he was, fearlessly 
and alone plunged into what at first sight to him presented 
itself as a trackless intellectual desert, and by his rapid, 
matchless, original reasoning made it blossom and bloom un- 
til the mists were all cleared away, and he knew and under- 
stood the question from his own standpoint, for himself, 
upon his own theory. 

"He inherited all his wealth, never made a dollar in his 
life, was wholly lacking in what the world calls practical sense, 
cared but little for the present or future of the individual, 
and. thinking and dreaming his life away in an honest, earn- 
est, noble effort to better the conditions of aggregate hu- 
manity, his greatest misfortune was that he was born two 
centuries before his time. 

"Of tragedy and drama his life was fillad ; in it there 
was not the faintest trace of comedy, while for his use the 
usual side-splitting joke required a diagram. He was all earn- 
est, serious intellect, analysis, and logic. But the dear old 
dreamer is dead; and with his life there went out the clear- 
est, purest intellectual sun that ever cast its warm light up- 
on the mental darkness of his times. Few will understand 
this estimate, because few knew the man. 

"After carefully reading this book, I confess to deep 
disappointment. The 'character study' of the devoted wife 
i; fiS true as it is charming. Every thing touched upon in 
the book, and a thousand others, he discussed with me ; and 
whilei the book will live and be enjoyed by every thoughtful 
reader because of the glimpse it gives the world of this mar- 
velous man, yet tliose who knew him well, as I did, will find 
upon almost every page evidence of the restraint that tram- 
meled the modest soul — he knew he was talking through a 
stenographer to the world, and that embarrassed him. I miss 
the freedom and the freshness, the fervency and the clearness, 
not less than the charm of manner and the indescribable flow 
r1 the direct, simple, easy, and eloquent delivery, that charac- 
terized all his talks over the wine and the brown bread in my 
ofifice during those rare eight months in 188.S. Had I but pos- 
sessed the foresight to secure and secrete a stenographer and 
have him take down all that was said during those never-to- 
be-forgotten nights, so high is my appreciation of the man's 
wisdom that I would rather have those talks, in manuscript 
even, than to have every book in my library. A little money 



302 Recollections 

would replace the library ; not all the world's wealth could 
accurately reproduce his talks ; and yet, for this imperfect 
production, I am profoundly thankful." (1893.) 

Brisbane t. Dean. 

Note 2: "In the summer of 1885 1 had offices in the 
Brisbane building, at tiie corner of Seventh and Delaware 
streets, and there brought about and was present at the first 
and only meeting of Albert Brisbane and Henry Clay Deaii. 
Each thought for himself, but their lines of thought were radi- 
cally different. 

"From my boyhood I had known Mr. Dean, and while 
he was regarded by many as a revolutionary crank, I sincere- 
ly admired and respected the man for his moral worth, gen- 
tle nature in private, rare courage and combativeness in pol- 
itics and religion, not less than for his vast acquirements. No 
man that I have known possessed such accurate information, 
such wide personal knowledge of persons and places, men and 
things in America, and his wonderful memory enabled him, 
without a moment's hesitation to recall and utilize all he knew. 
His faith in Democratic politics, the Christian religion, and 
the rights of persons and things, as fixed by law, bordered en 
the sublime, and he was never so happy as when defending 
his faith. H he did not quite hold all these in contempt, Mr. 
Brisbane certainly had contempt for one who did not get be- 
yond or above them. 

"Well, Mr. Dean happened in my office one day, and, cu- 
rious to note the result of a meeting of these two friends, I 
simply snid to him that I desired to present mv landlord, went 
out and brought in Mr. Brisbane, and, without a word of ex- 
planation, introduced them. Courteous greetings over, Dean 
looked from under his shaggy eyebrows at Brisbane and, in 
his peculiarly squeaky voice, said: 'McDougal tells me that 
you are his landlord. Do you own this building, Mr. Bris- 
bane?' Being answered in the affirmative. Dean continued: 
'A very fine building, Mr. Brisbane; must have cost $100,000. 
About forty years ago, Mr. Brisbane, I read an English edition 
of Fourier's works, written by a New Yorker of your name 
— are you related to the crank, who wrote that book ?' With a 
trifle of warmth, Mr. Brisbane answered: 'Egad! sir, I'm 
the man that wrote that book.' And then came this hot shot 
from Dean : 'If you wrote that book, sir, and have not repent- 



i 



A Few Others Worth While 303 

ed of and been forgiven for your sin, you have no business to 
own this or any other building, or any property of any kind 
anywhere, sir.' And his voice thundered as he added : 'For 
the author of that book was a sociahst — a damned communist, 
sir — who shoukl be thankful that American citizens who claim 
and have the right to own property under the laws will give 
him, when he dies, all the property his carcass deserves — three 
by six, sir.' 

"This was the opening gun of a contest royal, which lasted 
for two hours and forty minutes by the watch. The mighty 
gladiators were equally at liome ; they fought, not with sand- 
bags and bludgeons, but gleaming broadaxes and dazzling 
rapiers : blows. ne)ver below the Iv^lt, were given and taken ; 
powerful arguments logically aflvanced were as powerfull 
answered until to me the sole witness of that battle of giants, 
it seemed that the broad ocean oi social reform was lashed 
into fury, and that the storm, grand as it was inspiring, shook 
to its foundations the mountain of religious belief. 

"Dean had the vantage-ground of practical thought, close 
observation, wide reading, and accurate knowledge of fact and 
data; Brisbane, that of world-wide travel and association, pro- 
found study and rellection. Dean argued from the laws of 
God as found in the Bible, and those of man as fotmd in writ- 
ten constitutions and statutes ; Brisbane brusher 1 all these 
aside and squarely planted himself upon the laws of nature, 
untrammelcd bv the laws of man, free from tho^^ laws which 
men said God had made, and argued from conditions and sit- 
uations, men and thinge as they were, not as perverted, su- 
p>;rstitious, ignorant man said they were. 

"They ditfered upon every fundamental principle which 
underlies every social and religious problem — widely differed; 
yet each maintained his position, and from his standpoint 
argued with such marvelous skill, ability, learning, and elo- 
quence that I should have felt sorry for any other man in the 
place of either. 

"I loved these old leviathans and never wearied in observ- 
ing their splendid achievements in the sea of thought, but, see- 
ing that both showed signs of fatigue. I reluctaritly closed this 
memorable controversy, satisfied then, as I am now, that I 
should never witness such another. 

"With his usual politeness, Mr. Brisbane bade us a cour- 
teous good-day and retired. After minutes of reflection, Mr. 



304 Recollections 

]Xan turned to me and said : 'McDougal, that friend of yours 
is the most dangerous damned communistic crank I ever met. 
Thank God, there are but few such men living.' Later in the 
evening Mr. Brisbane came in and asked: 'Who and what 

is that friend of yours, Mr. ? I don't remember the name.' 

1 answered : 'Henry Clay Dean, who started in life as a Meth- 
odist preacher back at my old home in the mountains of Vir- 
ginia; was chaplain of the United States Senate in the early 
'50s ; came West just before the war ; quit the pulpit for the 
lecture platform and the law ; is a student, thinker, and phil- 
osopher who is on familiar terms with perhaps a greater num- 
ber of American statesmen than any one in this country.' Af- 
ter pacing back and forth for some time, Mr. Brisbane, as if 
speaking more to himself than to me. said: 'Yes, I see; I 
see. He has not outgrown his early superstitions ; is a very 
remarkable man in some respects, but as near a lunatic as 
anv man I ever saw outside of an insane asylum.' " (1893.) 

CiL\RLEs E. Carhart, Chicago. This globe-trotter, gen- 
ial gentleman, accomplished writer, thinker, and worker many 
years ago was on the editorial staff of one of our Kansas City 
newspapers, and later on was at the head of one of our insti- 
tutions of learning, but, born with the curse of wandering 
foot, he strayed off to the ends of the earth again one fine day. 
just where, or why, nobody knew ; but I understand that he 
is now a sober, sedate, useful, entertaining, instructive, scholar- 
ly citizen of the great windy city by the Lake, How long he 
will remain there, God in his wisdom may know, but I am 
sure no one else does. Nor is it known to mortal just where 
he will go, nor when, nor how ; but in the long run he will 
doubtless drift back to America, for, like all other good an- 
imals, he always returns to his habitat. 

Along in the early '90s, he and I were both members of 
the same Shakespeare Club here, along with Fred Howard, 
D. Web Wilder, John C. Gage, Dr. Brummel Jones, Noble 
L. Prcntis. Judge Gillpatrick, and a lot of others. Our name 



A Few Others Worth While 305 

should have been changed to the "Don't Giveadam Club" ; 
but maybe it was just as well. Anyway its makeup was the 
only one I ever knew about that to me was just right. It 
had no constitution, by-laws, officers, rules, regulations, or 
hours. Its aggregation just simply came together at the of- 
fice of Dr. Jones, at such times as might suit the individual, 
but always once in each week. The fellows were the bright- 
est, brainiest in town, and every man save myself knew a lot 
about Shakespeare, which I did not. The general scheme was 
to sit around as long as one wanted to and read and talk about 
the immortal bard of Avon. Sucii papers as were read and 
such talks. I never heard, nor did anyone else. Some one was 
agreed upon every week to prepare and read to the others, at 
the convenience of that person, a given paper, upon a giv^n 
Shakespearean subject. One night there, Carhart, or some- 
one, requested me to write on and answer the question. "Is 
Hamlet Insane?" I never kneM- anything about the subject, 
but, as I was loyal to the club and rather fond of writing once 
in a while anyway. I said I 'd do it. I bought a paper book 
"Hamlet," without note or comment, and religiously studied 
that play, from the standpoint a lawyer would most naturally 
take, and completed and read them my work in 1895. My 
intention was to polish the paper up, and re-write it. for I 
was rather proud of the effort, and after all that was done, 
thought I would print it some day for the edification of the 
faithful. By either good or bad fortune, I was sued by a 
bank on that very day for many thousand dollars more than 
1 was worth, and then happened to leave my paper in the 
Doctor's offices, as I rushed off to take a midnight train for 
Boston. All the evidence was in New England. I was gone 
East taking depositions in my case for six weeks, and on my 
return was surprised to know that this crude effort, just as 



306 Recollections 

I left it, had been printed in Kansas City, New York, and 
across the water. Then, too, I must have builded wiser than 
I knew, for on my desk I found many letters from profess- 
ors of English literature in both countries, saying that my 
pa])er was the two hundred and eighty-eighth book or pam- 
phlet on the same subject, and was the first answer on either 
side of the ocean to the same question, to be answered from 
the standpoint of a lawyer. All this was new to me ; and 
then five hundred reprints of my paper were on my desk, 
with the compliments of my fellow-clubmen. 

Ten years ago I spent the summer up at Grand Haven, 
Michigan, and on my return stopped for a few days in the 
apartments of a friend at Chicago. For some years I had 
neither seen nor heard of Carhart. But one evening, on go- 
ing down on the trolley toward the Palmer House there, I 
espied this genial Bohemian w^alking along in the same direc- 
tion, and alighted at the next crossing and greeted him. 
Right by that hotel corner we ran into a band of Sidvation 
Army workers, just as they commenced to sing some old 
hymn familiar to both, and, as he had a sweet voice and I 
a loud one, for some unknown reason we joined in the song. 
At its conclusion the captain in charge looked us over a::d 
I knew was ciphering out in his mind just which one of the 
two to call upon for a prayer. As my friend was growing 
a little bald, wore glasses, and had a sort of pious, clerical 
look anyway, the selection fell upon him, and such a power- 
ful prayer as that gentle pagan then ofifered is seldom heard. 
With him it was purely a question of skill, and he had it. 
Then we drifted on, and, at my invitation, landed in my tem- 
porary quarters, where we talked most of the night. But 
very soon after reaching there, Carhart said : "This reminds 
me of a night I spent just two years ago with an English 



A Few Others Worth While 307 

friend of mine in Bombay, India. Together he and I had 
toured Ireland and Scotland on foot some years before, and 
of course were quite chummy. On this evening we met by 
chance, and he invited me to his apartments in Bombay just 
as you have to yours in Chicago, and gladly accepted. But 
wC had only been in his rooms a short time when he asked 
if I remained the some incorrigible Shakespearean fiend I 
used to be? I replied to the effect that I was, because that 
disease seemed incurable; when he opened up a British mag- 
azine on his table and said: 'Here is the most remarkable 
bit of Shakespearean literature I have ever seen.' I picked 
up the book, glanced at the article, and saw that it was your 
answer to 'Is Hamlet Insane?' And I then said to him: 
'This is a little world, after all. Now, I have known McDou- 
gal ver)' well for many years ; we were once members of that 
same Shakespeare Club, and I was present at Kansas City on 
that evening and heard him read this paper.' " 

Carhart's nativity? No, I am not sure about that, but 
assume that he is an American. One who* listens to him for 
half an hour as he either talks in most of the living or swears 
in all the dead languages, as I have, will never think to ask 
him that question. 

One of his mottoes for years has been, "A man that is 
worth saving can always stand the truth." And maybe he 
had this in his mind not long ago when he commenced one 
of his letters to me this way : 

"In the name of the Holy of Holies and upholding the 
palladium of our liberties, the Declaration of Independence, 
(and I don't give a continental whether Thomas Jefferson 
perpetrated that on his own hook or copied it from the Meck- 
lenburg,) I send you greeting and hope that you are still as dis- 
satisfied with this thing we call civilization as you know I 
continue to be. In order to make sure that you get at the 



308 Recollections 

gist of this introductory paragraph, I want to repeat the word 
'greeting,' and hope that after a few moments, while in the 
enjoyment of its essence, you will forget all the confounded 
noise coming up to your office from Ninth Street." 

Richard Cavanaugh, of White Oaks, New Mexico. 

Those who have known this delightful Irishman longest and 
clo.-est, content themselves by simply calling him "Dick." 

Dick was born on Erin's Isle about seventy-five years 
ago, came to America; and the year 1855 finds him a private 
soldier in the old 2d Dragoons, U. S. Army, at Fort Leaven- 
worth. From that time on up to this day. Dick has been by 
times a soldier, a wagon-master, stage-driver, miner, ranch- 
er, cowboy, and always on the frontier. So he came to know 
the peoples and places on the border, from the Missouri 
River westward to the Pacific Ocean, better than anyone I 
l-.a\e met. With generals in the Army, as well as with Pres- 
idents, and with officers of railroads, he was on the same easy 
and familiar footing as with soldiers, ranchers, teamsters, 
hunters, and cowmen. With Dick they were all simply and 
only iiiCH: Who shall say he was wrong? He never mar- 
ried, never troubled himself about anything, is blessed with 
that uncommon human attribute called common sense, and 
in some way absorbed and knows more than most of his fel- 
lows of men and women and books, and such an interesting 
talker as he, one but seldom finds. 

He was, and no doubt, among his old comrades in the 
Soldiers' Home out in California, to-day remains the most 
artistic, accomplished, picturesque, and encyclopediacal liar in 
the universe ! In peace and war, on land and sea, lake and 
river, T have met and known many artists in Dick's special- 
ty, and here draw no line, nor make any invidious distinc- 
tion, but to me he presents himself as the absolute master of 



A Few Others Worth While 309 

his craft, and among them all stands without one single rival. 
Looking as innocent as a baby, with laughing blue eyes, 
and ricli brown hair and moustache. unt-:uched by the frosts 
of the years, and with an Erin-go-hragh brogue on his lips 
that is calculated to deceive the elect, Dick Cavanaugh vvhiled 
away many, many long liours for me when 1 was ill in my 
cottage down at White Oaks, New Mexico, during the sum- 
mer of 1902. His marvelous fund of harmless, half histor- 
ical, half mystical yarns never grew stale or tiresome, and 
it was always a pleasure to listen to the music of his voice. 
Among unnumbered other stories, with his pipe upside down 
more than half tiie time. I recall now just how he looked 
and talked as he sat out in front of the bad on which I lay 
one night down there, and told me the wonderful story 
of the great Indian fight at the Adobe Walls in an early day 
down in the God-forgotten Panhandle of Texas. He was 
in the battle ; but how few of our men, how many of the sav- 
ages, how many of the whites within the walls were killed 
and wounded, or how many Indians there bit the dust, or 
how many days the battle raged. I never could recollect. But 
anyway, our side was victorious in the end, and God only 
knows how many of the dead Dick helped to bury. About 
all I could recall was that it was a great fight and a greater 
victory. After I got well and came home, I sent Dick a se- 
ries of typewritten questions concerning this fight, its exact 
location, etc., etc. ; but he wisely refused to go on paper and 
never answered ; and while still hazy on this historic battle, 
Dick's story aboul. it will never be forgotten. My intention 
was to print it as Dick's story, wi'h his ric'i Irish brogue, 
his fancy profanity, and his hellity devilty cussity dams all 
thrown in, and I still believe he suspected this and for that 
reason alone failed to answer me. 



:<10 Recollections 

Among other merchants who freighted immense stocks 
of goods into White Oaks in early boom days were two 
Hebrew gentlemen whom I recall ; the one was always re- 
ferred to (but not in disrespect) as "Whiteman the Jew," 
while the other was a Mr. Weed. With these, as with others, 
Dick was a prime favorite, yet nothing afforded him higher 
pleasure than to tell many stories about them. Of these: A 
newly arrived preacher named Miller, a good fellow whom 
I later knew, once went into Whiteman's store and in his 
breezy way asked: "Have you any religion in here?" The 
old gentleman turned to his son, who was also his clerk, and 
said: "Ikey, blease look through ther stock and see if ve haf 
idt." After a long search, Ikey reported that the article was 
not in stock. Then Whiteman turned to Miller and said : 
"Ve dondt haf idt in our stock yoost now, and if Veed dondt 
carry idt, you '11 not findt idt in town." At another time Mr. 
Weed's bookkeeper had milked a tenderfoot for $2,700, cov- 
ered up the theft, and left town with the money. A row was 
raised about it, and the committee appointed reported that it 
must be an eirror, as Weed's books balanced. Whiteman 
remarked: "That seems square, but vill Veed balance?" 

On the Whitq Oaks face of a great triangular boulder 
that juts out from the mountain side a mile below that town, 
preacher Adams once painted the legend, "Prepare to meet 
thy God," while some graceless cuss on its other face later 
painted, "Stop and cat your meals at the White Oaks Hotel." 
Reading the two inscriptions always brings a smile. No 
one knew, but I have always suspected Dick of the addition. 

In my wanderings through New Mexico, just two of 
the many digs at my home State now seem worthy of pres- 
ervation : Down there years ago, I was attracted by a 
scrawlc 1 pencil epitaph on the headboard of some dead cow- 



A Few Others Worth While 311 

puncher, which, after the name and date of the untimely de- 
cease, simply said : "He was a mene man in some things, 
but a damsite mener in others." Inquiring into the history, 
etc., of the man who could merit such a send-off, my friend 
Dick Cavanaugh waived all this aside and said : "Be Gad ! 
sor, that eppitaff was stole bodily ; I saw it with me own eyes 
up in Idyho way back in war-times ; you see, sor, a Missou- 
rian refugeed to tliat Territory then to keep out of the bloody 
war, and not long afterward the vigilantees of Idyho had 
to hang the cuss for stealin' horses, and they put that very 
eppitaff on his grave-board." 

Through the ungodly heat of the desert down there, I 
was driving on a buckboard toward White Oaks in 1902. 
Hot, grouchy, I had said no word to the driver for perhaps 
thirty miles. But as we got out of the san 1 an 1 started up 
Ancho Canon, in the Jicarilla Mountains, I chanced to see 
to our right a poor, unshorn, bewhiskered, dark-skinned in- 
dividual sitting in the shade of an adobe shack, all alone. 
Just why I then said anything must forever remain one of 
the mysteries of that country; but anyway I jerked my right 
thumb in the direction of this lone stranger and inquired of 
my driver: "Mexican?" He glanced at the forlorn, silent, 
motionless figure a moment, and then answered : "Nope, 
Missourican." 

Like the rest of us. Dicks knows that man contends and 
fights in youth, is careful and cautious in manhood, and is 
mellow, charitable, and conservative in old age ; yet, unlike 
the few we meet, these considerations never bothered him; 
this cheerful liar was never known to lie awake nights con- 
gratulating himself that he was incorrigibly virtuous; nor in 
solving problems relating to the unknown ; nor in violating the 
wise injunction he once struck on the Pacific Coast — "Don't 



312 Recollections 

take yourself too dam seriously." Scmi-occasionally he be- 
comes hostile, dons his blanket and war-paint, and wanders 
from the reservation for some days, and maybe his life has 
been a little seamy on both sides; but, like that other serene 
animal, he always returns — "and the cat came back." So it 
is hoped that some of these fine mornings will find good o'd 
Dick smiling his "howdy" to his friends, back among them 
again at White Oaks. 

William F. Codv ("Buffalo Bill"), Nebraska. Atten- 
tion is here directed to Bill for the reason that the whule 
world knows him through his Wild West Show, and he is a 
good fellow to meet and know anywhere ; but especially c n 
account of just one story not generally known: 

About 1887 he and I were guests of the Paxton Hotel, 
at Omaha, and one morning about nine o'clock met in the 
hotel office. The big, handsome frontier showman invited 
me to repair to the bar for a "mornin's mornin," and I de- 
clined on the ground that I had just had my breakfast, and 
it was too early anyway. To save the human life of a very 
I'.uman friend, I finally yielded. Bill backed up. put his el- 
bows on the bar counter, and as he stood that way said : "My 
menial and [)h\ sical condition this mor ling is precisely the 
same now as it was way back a long time ago when I was a 
member of the Nebraska Legislature, and hal then, just as 
last night, been having a time of it with the boys down at 
Lincoln ; maybe we toyed with the cards and the liquor not 
wisely, but too well. y\nyway. the next morning I started 
down toward the State-house with old Colonel A., who was 
also a member, and the old fellow tried to talk with m^ on 
many matters. He got no response, for I had a head that 
you could cat grass with and didn't talk; at last he stopped 
and said: 'Say, Cody, do you know why you now remind 



A Few Others Worth While 313 

me of some of our counties down in southwestern Nebras- 
ka?' I said I didn't, when the old chap explained: 'It's 
because you are not worth a damn without irrigation.' " 

Charles Gorham Comstock, of Albany-St. Joseph, 
Missouri, was born back in Xew England, "time whereof the 
memory of man runneth not to thei contrary," came to Mis- 
souri long before the Civil War (in which he rose to the 
rank of colonel), settled at Albany, where he held many pub- 
lic offices, amassed a competency, and now keeps up establish- 
ments at both Albany and St. Joseph, while he and his good 
wife spend their leisure months in foreign travel. Never in 
robust health in the forty odd years I 've known him inti- 
mately, this modest, retiring lawyer, thinker, student, bank- 
er, farmer, gentleman, has imagined himself by times the 
victim of every disease known to man, but still studies, works, 
and travels like a boy. 

I first met him at a hotel in the little town of Jamesport 
in 1868. He was ill and I a law student over at Gallatin, 
the county seat, ten miles away. My time to me seemed very 
valuable then, but was of course not worth much. I say 
of Comstock now, as long ago was said back in Virginia, he 
bore in his face two letters of recommendation from God 
Almighty — he was sick and a stranger. So I remained there 
and nursed him back to health. Ever since then we have 
been much together, each at the home of the other, in the 
cities of this country and as far southwest as in old Mexico; 
while in the conservation of his vast and varied interests, 
the services and advice of no lawyer satisfy him quite so 
well as those of his life-long friend. 

In going into Xew Mexico with him in 1881, we spent 
several days each at Las Vegas, old Santa Fe, Albuquerque, 



314 Recollections 

Socorro, and White Oaks, thence up to our mines in the Gal- 
linas Mountains, where we spent that summer. We arrived 
at Las Vegas the day the news came to that town that Pat 
Garrett, Sheriff of Lincoln County, had just shot and killed 
that greatest of the outlaws of the Southwest, "Billy the 
Kid." At Socorro we were wined, dined, and feasted by my 
brother Luther, who then kept the Park Hotel at that ancient 
Spanish village; but our most glorious treat was found in the 
rare Muscatel vintage of the monks of the earlier years, ana 
that wine was never once missing from our table. If here 
printed, a complete recital of our tragic and comic personal 
experiences for several of the days following Socorro, few 
would read and fewer understand, for not many traveled 
through that far-away country in that day; but our efforts 
to get away from the town, our attempting to and finally 
crossing the then raging Rio Grande del Norte, being lost c n 
the desert after dark, the buckboard trip over the Oscuro 
Mountains at night with a surly cow-puncher driver, heading 
the Mai Pais, and at last finding our friends at the White 
Oaks mining town, and going thence, via the fleas at Ho- 
cradle's Ranch, to our mining camp, forty-five miles north 
of White Oaks in the Gallinas Mountains, would alone fill a 
volume. What's the use? 

From our camp in the mountains that summer, we made 
frequent hunting and fishing expeditions, and around there 
somewhere I now recollect that, worn and tired out with 
our unaccustomed chase, we one day sat down to rest high 
up on the mountain cliff. Something in the surrounding 
scenery imprelssed me, and I sang an old-time song in a voice 
that is now never heard. The Colonel quietly listened and, 
without a smile, simply said: "It 's a hell of a pity you were 
not born blind." Colonel J. H. Shanklin, Dr. Edward Mor- 



A Few Others Worth While 315 

ley, William J. Spence, and many others were there in the 
camp with us, while Robert M. Gilbert, lovingly called "the 
old war-horse of the Pecos," was our cook. Antelope, deer, 
and mountain trout were supplied us until any kind of bacon 
became a luxury ; cards were daily played, cords of novels 
were read, and all reveled in the unrivaled forests and na- 
ture. That was the first full summer any of the party had 
ever si)cnt forty-five miles away from a town, post-office,. 
daily paper, human settlement, or white woman. Our mines 
were located in the mountains wherein the Indians of old 
hunted and camped, and the men mentioned were all officers 
of our company. We all knew that a mine-owner was proper- 
ly defined as "a dam fool who claims a hole in the ground"; 
but we were after fun and recreation, and got both. Toward 
the last of our stay, the descendants of these same original 
Americans went upon the war-path, and were reported in tlie 
States to be killing men all around us. This, however, did 
not trouble us, for we were unconscious of their presence. In 
coming out of the mountains that fall, we met a Government 
wagon-train on the Pedernal Mountains. The men in charge 
urged us to return and go southward with tliein. for the 
reason that on the day previously they had encountered bands 
of the painted war-path red dejvils in Canons Blanco and 
Benou. We knew our road led us through these two canons, 
and held a council of war. Rut among the four of us, Colo- 
nels Shanklin and Comstock, myself, and our Mexican guide, 
we found we aggregated sixty-six shots, with ample ammuni- 
tion. Hence it was agreed that we drive on to the railroad 
at Las Vegas. Through our field-glasses we saw painted In- 
dians, on the war-path, in these two canons that day; but I 
had the reins and worked the brake, and at the end of a sixty- 
five-mile drive, we arrived before nightfall at the Baca Pass 



316 Recollections 

on the Rio Pecos, and all our troubles were over. For their 
rainy selnson was still on, the Pecos was raging, and not less 
than 300 persons were then waiting on the banks for its wa- 
ters io subside so that they might get across. Then our old 
friend, Tom 0.-.by, with his alleged Mexican wife, lived at 
and was keeping the Pass, and Tom cheerfully supplied us 
with German kiimel and a place to sleep on the ground and 
under our bu.kboards. None of that party will ever forget 
the marvelous rapidity with which Tom's liquid fire went 
to the tijs of our fingers and toes. But we ate, rested, and 
slept that night. 

Together Comstock and I journeyed to New Mexico 
again in 1900; but then by rail via Fort Worth, El Paso, 
and Carrizozo, and thence by buckboard to White Oaks and 
on up to the mines. We left Kansas City on the day of Mc- 
Kinley'.s second election and got the satisfactory result on the 
train. In his daily walk and conversation no man could be 
more trutiiful than Colonel Comstock; but upon our return 
we went from El Paso over into Old Mexico and there pur- 
chased a lot ol little presents for loved friends. I was then 
an old hand at that business and in my travels had learned 
the important fact that every woman is a natural born smug- 
gler. Following their illustrious practice, it was easy for 
me to get through the customs officials all right on coming 
back; but when Uncle Sam's servant stuck his head in our 
car and, as usual, asked, "Anything dutiable?" I was as- 
tonished to see Colonel Charlie look him squarely in the eye 
and hear him respond, "Nothing." Ji^ist how he squared 
his conscience with that response I never knew, nor asked. 

Upon our return from El Paso, at the station there wc 
awaited a later train connection, and this gave us an oppor- 
tunity to study tiiree ragged hoboes who had been up all night 



A Few Others Worth While 317 

long celebrating the coming separation from one of their num- 
ber who was to go eastward on our train. One was Irish, 
another German, while the third must forever remain with- 
out classification. Maybe he was a citizen of the world, a 
cosmopolite, but he was certainly just as dirty, noisy, and as 
(hunk as his fellows. They occasionally drank "red licker" 
out of a bottle, and talked, wept, and sung songs the rest of 
the time. We drew nigh for closer observation, inspection, 
and contemplation, and I never so strongly realized as on 
that morning that one first-class Bohemian and hobo sadly 
missed his calhng the day I chose the legal profession. Wob- 
bling around the station grounds, holding on to each other 
to keep from falling, the trio unconsciously presented an apt 
illustration of the old Kentucky motto, "United we stand, 
divided we fall." With many a halt and stumble and jerk, 
all out of tune, to the air of "Just as the sun went down," 
they gave us one song, the chorus of which ran this way: 

"The Kid held — a brickbat — in his right hand, 
Another — was held by — McGowan. 
The Son — called his Father — an A. P. A. — 
Just then — the Son — went — dowan." 

One night about thirty years ago, in his office at Albany, 
the Colonel gave me all the known facts relating to what then 
seemed the most complex and mysterious land proposition 
of my practice. In brief they were: That originally this 
land stood on the public records in the name of one Wal- 
ter McDowell; it consisted of a large tract on the Empire 
Prairie, where the thriving town of King City is now located, 
was then worth about ninety thousand dollars, and no one 
else claiming to be the owner, Comstock had first taken it in 
on a tax title deed, and it was later conveyed to him by a man 
by the name of Walter McDowell, whom he was beginning 



318 Recollections 

to suspect v/as not its lawful owner; and a firm of St. Joseph 
lawyers were threatening suits to recover the property. The 
Colonel's lawyer-like recital of all these facts so impressed 
me that at the close of his story I asked, "But who the hell 
is Walter McDowell?" The solemn and only answer was: 
"I would give ten thousand dollars in gold to know." The 
results of our joint efiforts were that to every postmaster in 
America an inquiry was sent to ascertain the real man ; a de- 
tective was kept employed for many months searching the 
country ; but the right party was not located. Aleanwhile 
we learned that our deed had been given by a Pennsylvania 
mountaineer who never owned a hundred dollars' worth of 
property in his life, and that it was worthless. Following up 
some now-forgotten clue, the Colonel then sent me to Chilli- 
cothe, Ohio, and thence to Philadelphia and on to Slating- 
ton, in Pennsylvania, and at these several places the true 
facts and simple were finally ascertained to be : That the 
real Walter McDowell was the "ne'er do well" son of a large 
Scottisli family, from whom he had early run away, joining 
the British Army; that while in the service of that Gov- 
ernment as a drill-master, he had married, reared a family, , 
died, and was buried in Greitna Green, Scotland, in 1848; 
that in ignorance of all this, his wealthy brothers, then Amer- 
icans, had purchased this land and taken the title in Walter's 
name about 1855, to make a home for him and his family. 
In my desk here now is the retain copy of the written opinion 
given to the Colonel on my return, to the eff'ect that, under 
the authorities, neither Walter's surviving children nor his 
family could recover the land for each or either of the two 
reasons there given. But the Colonel thought he might soon 
die, was determined to settle the case out of court, and gave 
me written authority to draw on him for twentv thousand 



A Few Others Worth While 319 

dollars for deeds from the McDowell heirs. My protesta- 
tions against this unnecessary expenditure of so much cold 
cash were practically unheeded, but I did get time to write to 
and hear from the attorneys for the heirs. When complet- 
ed, after a labor of more than half the night and the smok- 
ing of twenty-four cigars, that letter I wrote them read either 
one of three ways — it all depended upon the way it was 
roared ; and then, upon its approval by the Colonel, I copied it 
on a half-sheet of legal cap, just as if it were written at the 
noon hour in court and on th: spur of the moment, and mailed 
it. The net result was that Comstock procured his deed from 
all of the McDowell heirs for just eight thousand dollars. 

That lawyar who always practices in the city misses 
a lot of the fun of the country circuit. Among the many 
land cases I then tried for Colonel Comstock up in Gentry 
County, I now recall one in which one James Grimsley was 
a witness for the other side and dead against us, but we had 
to rely upon him. His neighbors down about Gree(nwell 
Ford always called him "Old Jim." In some way I had 
learned that he Vvas originally from Rockbridge County, 
in my native State, and to the early settlers of the Grand 
River country used to boast that back there he had helped 
to haul the stones that built the Natural Bridge of Virginia T 
The case was desperately close ; the opposing counsel had not 
called upon "Old Jim." So I arose from the counsel table, 
looked over the audience, and in a loud voice inquired: 
"Is Major Grimsley in the court-room?" He had never 
been called "Major" before in his long life, and, as I hoped, 
with the utmost dignity, got up from his seat and in an equal- 
ly loud tone answered: "He is, sub." "Will you please 
come around and be sworn as a witness. Major?" He said, 
"With the greatest pleasure, suh." During his entire ex- 



320 Recollections 

amination I employed the soft accent of the South and never 
once failed to speak of him as a Southern gentleman, nor 
to address him as "Major Grimsley." He was a most ex- 
cellent witness for us, told the whole truth as it was, and 
we won, while the "Major" died in the helief that I was the 
one great lawyer of the age ! 

This further incident is mentioned for the double pur- 
pose of directing attention to the words hereinafter quoted 
and concurring in the wise conclusion. I have noticed that 
when busiest, there is time for everything; but with abso- 
lutely nothing to do, there is never time for anything. One 
bright Sunday morning long ago, with John Townshend, ot 
New York, whose great legal treatise of "Libel and Slander" 
has long been standard authority, I was out in the garden, 
and he and I were talking and devouring many of Colonel 
Comstock's rich red strawberries up at Albany. The Judge 
and the Colonel wore cousins and schoolboy friends back 
East, and Townshend spent many of his vacations in the 
West. I happened to say something about one of my tardy 
correspondents who in the belated answer just received had 
apologized for the alleged reason that he "had not had the 
time" to write me sooner. Townshend looked around and in 
his earnest and emphatic way said : "Young man, whenever 
a man hereafter writes that way to you, set it down that he 
is a damned liar !" 

A tenant on one of Colonel Comstock's farms down on 
Grand Rivdr, whose name I think is Dobson, told me long 
after I came to Kansas City of an earnest effort which he 
had once made to induce a brother of his to introduce him- 
self to and become acquainted with me, and with pleasure 
and no little pride I now recall the impressively solemn way 
this untutored son of the soil closed his recital of wrestling 



A Few Others Worth Whii,e 321 

with this brother in this way: "I '11 tell you, Joe, that when 
you look at this feller as lie goes into court, or listen to him 
as, he talks to the Judge or a jury, he seems so all-fired seri- 
ous that you 'd think he 'd bite a ten-penny nail in two ; but 
say. }ou get out witii him once, as I 've been, and you '11 soon 
find out that he 's just the commonest feller you ever met !" 

William ("Bill") Devere, Colorado. Bill and I had 
lived a long time, and in the West too, before we met. He 
was then an actor, and was the only one of that class whom 
I have known that did not have to "make up," for he always 
appeared upon the stage in the same clothes, and with the 
same manners, talk, and all that, which he appeared in field, 
mine, street, or anywhere else. Then he had at odd times 
in his life had been a teacher, bar-tender, preaclier, prospector, 
miner, poet, mine-owner, reporter, Bohemian, editor, cow- 
puncher, drunkard, actor, merchant, saloon-keeper, trader, 
and in the meanwhile' had both made and lost colossal for- 
tunes. But in writing his verses he appealed to me because 
he got down to and wrestled with men and women and things 
as he saw them and as they are ; while 'his acting on the 
boards was always just as natural and human. So this art- 
ist of nature got close to me. not only because of his human 
poetry and natural acting, but then somehow liked old Bill 
anyway. 

There was good blood in Bill's veins; he was carefully 
educated, traveled, and accomplished ; but for some unknown 
reason wandered from home when young and finally drifted 
into the gold mines of the far West. He might not have 
proven a glittering success in the drawing-rooms of New 
York or Boston ; I never saw him there ; but it is certain that 
his Eastern hearers would not have remained in darkness 



322 Recollections 

very long, for he always talked well and brains and thought 
were behind his every utterance. He was most at home in 
the freedom of nature as he found it in the Rocky Mountains 
long ago; and I never knew it if there was anything he could 
not do on the frontier. Cook at a smoky campfire, spin 
yarns to the "boys," dash off poetry on any conceivable sub- 
ject, sing a hymn to melt the heart, or preach a sermon of 
rare power and pathos, these wefre only a few of his varied 
and various accomplishments. 

In one of his poems, read years before we met, Bill tells 
the story of his life. I think it is entitled "Walk, list Walk." 
Anyway, after the manner of the Rockies, roughing it in that 
country for long years. Bill became the owner of a rich mine, 
sold it at a tremendous figure, got the money and drafts, and 
started to "God's country,," to spend a few years in peace 
and plenty at his childhood home "back in the States." At 
Denver, however, he fell in with a lot of boon companions 
and, instead of going on to the old home, as fully intended, 
he spends the winter in riotous living with these boys and 
girls — drinks, gambles, attends theaters, dance-houses, etc. — 
with the result that in the spring he finds himself without 
a dollar or a friend. Cursing his false friends, his folly, 
weakness, and bad luck, he starts on foot back to the mines 
in the mountains alone, to regain his lost fortune. As he 
tramps along the dry, dusty road, a rancher driving a lumber 
wagon overtakes him and urges him to get in and ride. But 
Bill spurns this offer, and begs the privilege of walking be- 
hind the wagon in the dust. The driver insists that he 
doesn't "own the road a'nind or afore," and hence our friend 
may walk along as he likes. So 'Bill, filled with remorse, 
choked with dust, walks along that road behind the wagon 
and truly soliloquizes his life story, closing each verse with 



A Few Others \\'ort;i While 323 

his "Walk, dam ye! jist walk." A volume of Bill's poems 
was published about a dozen year^ ago; but, like our friend 
Eugene Field, he reserved for private circulation among a 
few chosen friend- the really bright, wise, witty, wicked poet- 
ry and prose that flowed at will from his versatile pen. 

Thomas Dunn English, New Jersey. When I saw 
and knew and enjoyed talking with this gentleman, he was 
a tall, white-haired, white-moustached member of the Lower 
House of the Federal Congress at Washington, and one of 
the most popular and best beloved men then in public life. 
Long after coming West, I was once talking about English 
with Dr. Robert W. Witten, the father of my lawyer friends 
Thomas A. and William Wirt Witten, when this venerable 
gentleman told me that he and Dr. English had together 
started in life as young men engaged in the practice of med- 
icine, at the little town of Beckley in Raleigh County, West 
Virginia, and that Dr. English had then written in early life 
all save the last verse of the poem upon which his chief claim 
to fame now rests — "Ben Bolt." After he went back East 
and permanently located. Dr. English completed his verses 
at the request of Nathaniel Parker \Villis, who printed them 
in his Nezv York Magazine. The man who made "Ben Bolt" 
famous and put it into the mouth of every American and 
English singer as a song, however, was not its author; but a 
brainy, clever, Bohemian minstrel named Nelson Kneass, of 
Baltimore, Maryland. 

Among many personal reminiscences of their early years 
in the mountains. Dr. Witten once told me this story about 
himself and Dr. English: The latter had a sudden profes- 
sional call out in the country and, his own riding-horse being 
lame, he borrowed Dr. Witten's thoroughbred race-mare for 



324 Recollections 

the trip. Dr. English rode off all right, but a mile up the 
road tlie marc became frightened and ran away with him, 
back home. Reading in his office, Dr. VVitten heard the clat- 
ter of her hoofs on the stony highway and ran out. At 
break-neck speed tlie thoroughbred came thundering down the 
road with Dr. English holding on to her mane. At the gate 
leading t > her stall in tl.e barn she stopped with a sudden 
jerk, but tlxing over her head, on went Dr. English into the 
barnyard. Thinking beyond doubt that this fall had killed 
him, Dr. W'itten ran to see if there was anything he could 
do, and was overjoyed to see the unhurt Dr. English jump 
to his feet and hear him say: "Be God! Doc, I brought 
your horse back." 

]\Iany years ago, at a term of the Chillicothe court. I 
met Colonel Caspar W. Bell, of Keytesville, Missouri. He 
was one of the really brilliant speakers among the passing 
lawyers of the old days, a talker of rare charm, and had rep- 
resented his district in the Confederate Congress at Rich- 
mond. \'irginia. The book "Trilby" was just out, and the 
old song of "Ben Bolt" was then being revived and sung 
throughout the country upon its dramatization. The talk 
somehow turned on "Ben Bolt," and Colonel Bell repeated its 
every word and line as no one else ever did. In fact, it was 
so pathetic that if a wooden Indian cigar-sign had remained 
dry-eyed during Bell's recital, I should have had no more 
respect for that Indian. Led by the venerable Bell, every- 
body present shed a few tears out of sympathy for "sweet 
Alice" and no one attempted concealment. After this reci- 
tal, Colonel Bell told us that upon his return to Missouri 
after the war, he met in the old Browning House at Chil- 
licothe, in 1868. his old, life-long*, beloved friend Nelson 
Kneass ; that the two proceeded to celebrate the happy re- 



A Few Others Worth Whh.e 325 

union in due aiul ancient form, and that when he came out 
of his ilhiess, liis dear friend Kneass had there died and had 
then been laid to rest in a spot at the foot of a tree, "in a cor- 
ner obscure and lone," in Edgewood Cemetery at Chillicothe. 

In 1905. I am told, the body of the song-bird's wife was 
laid beside that of her long-gone husband, and so Nelson 
Kneass and his wife, together again, sleep the last long sleep. 
Colonel Bell i.-. gone, so is Billy Leach, who buried Nelson 
Kneass, and so are very many of the good friends known 
and loved at Chillicothe in tlie late '60s. 

In that same little village of Beckley, away along be- 
fore the war, a brilliant yet dreamy young attorney, bear- 
ing the name of Stephen Adams (who later removed to and 
became famous as a lawyer and statesman at Petersburg, 
\irginia), started in to practice his profession at the same 
time, and there wrote the words and the music of another 
song wider known than "Ben Bolt" and better in all ways. 
It i- "The Blue Alsatian Mountains." 

Frederick Howard, Kansas City, Missouri. The whirl- 
igig of time may bring the bottom rail to the top, the tomtit 
may sit in the eagle's net, dogs and other animals may fight, 
but in the quarter of a century that I have known and been 
much in contact with Fred Howard, he has never once lost 
his even temper, but is always the same quiet, unruffled, level- 
headed, interesting, instructive gentleman. For many years 
he was my near neighbor and we had law offices on the same 
floor; but of late he has been in the mining business and vi- 
brates between Wall Street in New York, Old Mexico, and 
San Francisco. Either design or accident has thrown us to- 
gether in very many places in almost every quarter of this 
continent, and besides, he knows foreign lands and peoples 



326 Recollections 

as few Americans ever come to know them, for he traveled, 
studied, and spent Ids time with them in an intelhgent way 
for years. Modest and unassuming always, yet his vast 
learning, wide travel and thorough knowledge of men and 
affairs have given him sucii splendid self-confidence that, 
if necessary, he would not hesitate to undertake the task of 
running the universe ; but he never volunteers anything. So 
unerring is his judgment that many a time I have consulted 
him upon questions relating to public policy, or private right, 
and in all the past his conclusions have proven correct and 
true. 

Over twenty years ago, Missouri clients employed me to 
go down into Georgia to try a contested noncupative will case. 
Under an old English statute, in force in that country from 
the time Georgia was a colony under Oglethorpe, real estate 
may there be devised by an unwritten will the same as person- 
alty. Fred was going down into Florida and in that March 
rain and storm we two traveled southward together, and were 
delayed in many places. There were a lot of good fellows in 
our sleeper, and I recall now that in crossing the Black War- 
rior Fork of the Tcmbigbee River the high water came up to 
the ties, all had to disembark, cross th2 river afoot on that 
railroad bridge, and take another train on the other side. 
Among the passengers was a poor woman with her five little 
children, going over into Georgia to join her husband. Just 
how I managed to lug two of those babies and my own grip 
across that bridge for over a mile in the rain, I don't recollect, 
but T did it. On our way eastward our train was again de- 
layed at the little town of Oxana, Alabama, where all stopped 
over night at a local tavern. The landlord refused to enter- 
tain this woman and her children because she was poor and 
moneyless. So a purse was made up, the poor family guarded 



A Few Othrrs Worth While; 327 

in the dining-room while they ate, and for that night's rest they 
had the hest rooms the house afforded. All this so outraged 
and enraged the tavern-keeper that in sheer self-defense the 
other members of the storm-bound party were compelled tc) 
and' did bodily throw him out of his house; we gathered up a 
negro with a fiddle and another with a banjo, and to theirs 
added our own songs, dances, recitations, etc., and proceeded 
in our own way to make a night of it, while the landlord and 
his clerk cussed outside. 

The next afternoon, as our train was approaching Atlanta, 
Georgia, I had gone forward into the smoker and was there 
talking with a friend, when a tall, rawboned, lantern-jawed 
"cracker" pointed a long forefinger to our left and said to us : 
"Right there, gentlemen, is the place from which that old 
beast, Sherman, with his thieves and bummers and murderers, 
started on his march to the sea, across the fair fields of Geor- 
gia.' Maybe I was a trifle grouchy on account of the con- 
tii.ued rains and would a little sooner have had a scrap then 
than not ; anyway this reference to my beloved General and his 
men never touched me, but the wide waste of sand and scrub- 
brush did ; I couldn't stand for "the fair fields of Georgia" just 
then, and quietly said to my companion : "Help me on the chor- 
us." So I stepped into the aisle and in a loud, full voice sung 
every word, note, and line of "Marching through Georgia." To 
my surprise, and possible disappointment, no one in that crowd- 
ed car batted an eye or said a word. As we were even then 
in the outskirts of the town, T slowly went back to my friend 
Howard in the sleeper and soon alighted at the station with oth- 
er passengers. We had dinner at the Kimball House and stroll- 
ing down the streets later on I happened on my smoking-car 
friend. He told me with great glee this story: "You, of course, 
recollect that slabsided Georgian who aroused your ire in the 
smoker ; well, sir, you missed the best part of the little matinee 



328 Recollections 

there; that fellow watched you intently as you passed from 
our car, through the chair car and until you closed the sleeper 
door, and then he turned to me and asked, 'Say, stranger, who 
is that feller?' I answered: 'I don't know his name; but'he 
was a Union soldier, is now a lawyer, and lives at Kansas 
City." As we were slowing up at the station here, that Georgian 
drew a long breath and said, 'Well, the damned Yankee looks 
like he "d fight yit, don't he?' " 

By rail we got down to Macon that night and at their 
hotel I had my last attack of sick headache. While recuperat- 
ing next day, Howard took in the town and among other placcb 
their cemetery. Here he was attracted by a beautiful marble 
shaft erected to the memory of a Georgian soldier who fell in 
battle at the close of the war, and the stone said: "His last 
words were, ' 'Tis sweet for one's country to die.' " While 
gazing upon and thinking about this legend, a one-legged Con- 
federate soldier came up, and Fred said: "That is a beautiful 
sentiment; I wonder if these were in fact the last words of the 
dead soldier?" The veteran answered: "Well, no; me and Bill 
there was in the same comp'ny and I was right nigh him when 
he was shot; he didn't exactly say them words that's on hi^ 
tombstone, but he did say : 'I 'm shot ; after fightin' for nigh 
four year without a scratch, it 's tough to be plugged this a-way 
now by a dam mudsill Yankee.' " 

The heavy rains had demoralized travel, but that after- 
noon we left Macon on a south-bound train, and seeing that 
we looked different from other passengers, a kind-faced old 
preacher introduced himself, and while the train halted at a 
forlorn town without any sign of improvement in sight, pointed 
out to us from the rear platform the lines of the old stockade, 
the spring, and just to our left over the tops of the growing 
pine trees the Stars and Stripes waving over the graves of many 
thousands of Union heroes who there died of starvafion, dis- 



4 Few Othkks Worth While 329 

ease, or wounds, for that little town was Andersonville, Geor- 
gia. Still further Southward, I disembarked to try my case, 
while Howard continued on to Florida. 

The drives and rides around through the piney woods, the 
turpentine-making, the magnolia trees, the flowers, the solr, 
dreamy climate of south Georgia, and all that, greatly inter- 
ested me for each of the ten days I was there waiting on the 
other side to go into this will case ; but the details can be of no 
special interest now. I was defending and won the case; but 
my clients lost the $40,000 of real estate involved in that will 
in this way: At the trial a bright young newspaper stranger 
happened to be present and took elaborate notes of all the 
facts. The strange and unusual life of the deceased, the 
stranger testimony offered by the proponents, and the dead 
fainting away of the principal witness for the will under our 
cross-examination, struck the young reporter as so highly 
dramatic that he featured the story by enlarging somewhat 
upon its many novel facts. This story was printed down in 
Georgia and so attracted the fancy of another newspaper man 
away up North that he there reproduced it in full. That the 
unexpected may happen in any law-suit was fully exemplified 
in my case, for the story as republished up North by accident 
fell into the hands of the only child born of the unheard-of 
first marriage of the deceased to a woman from whom he was 
never divorced, but who, though abandoned for nearly fort> 
years before this trial, was still living ! Hence that son was 
clearly entitled to inherit the entire estate left by his father, to 
the exclusion of my clients and all others. So it goes ; the 
longer I live the more firmly I believe in the old saw — "Nothing 
is sure but death and taxes." 

After this trial, I rejoined Howard down in Florida, and 
there at Pensacola again fell in with our old preacher friend 
from Macon. From him I learned that he was personally well 



330 Recollections 

acquainted with our mutual friend, Sam Jones, of Georgia, 
In talking with and listening to Sam only one of his many 
accomplishments struck mc, and that was that he could say 
a pathetic thing in a more pathetic way than any one I ever 
heard, for Sam had a larynx and knew how to use it. But i 
didn't know, and was endeavoring to extract from this vener- 
able friend, just how Sam was regarded by his neighbors and 
friends at Cartersville, and finally elicted this telling response : 
"Yes, suh, I know Brother Sam Jones very well, suh ; we have 
often preached from the same pulpit, suh ; but I can only 
answer for myself, suh, in saying that I have long regarded 
Brother Sam as a Christianized curiosity." 

In the summer of 1890, we met by appointment in Wash- 
ington City and fully intended to wander off together for a 
two-months rest and play in Europe ; but these plans were 
changed and, without preconceived purpose, that summer was 
spent in "drifting."' First, we went down the Potomac to Old 
Point Comfort, then across the Chesapeake Bay to Cape Charles 
City, and from there by spring wagon to a resort called Wach- 
aprague in Virginia, an Atlantic Coast town of which we had 
just heard. The greatest excitements of our two-days stay thetc 
were an attenuated ex-slave about 140 years old with a beau- 
tiful thirst, and a yacht-race for a watermelon prize one Sat- 
urday afternoon. So we drove across country to Accomac 
Court Plouse, where we occupied the same room in which 
Henry A. Wise was born. Mumerous were the stories told 
us by the older inhabitants concerning their personal recol- 
lections of this to them ideal congressman, foreign minister, 
Governor of Virginia, and, lastly. Confederate general. It was 
while representing this district that Wise had said from his 
scat in the Lower House, "I thank Almighty God that not a 
single newspaper is published in my Congressional District." 
There too is recorded the report to the Crown of Colonel Scar- 



A Few Others Worth While 331 

borough, giving in many pages all the details of his expedi- 
tion against the Quakers of that vicinity in 1663 ; and as to the 
organization of his forces he used the expression, "and then, 
m addition to all these, I took along about forty horse for 
pomp of safety." The closing sentence of this, Wise said, was 
"the most eloquent" he ever read; but to us it was a little 
hazy. From this report it is also apparent that Scarborough 
was not authorized to either carry these recalcitrant Quakers 
back with him to the Colonial capital at Williamsburg, or to 
execute them ; so in each of many instances he further says, "1 

then and there arrested and placed the broad 

arrow over his door." We knew what that "broad arrow" 
meant after the Parliamentary Act of 1692; but just what 
Scarborough intended by it in 1663. no historian has ever been 
able to tell us. These Quakers had denied the authority of 
the Established Church and of the Colony of Virginia. Th.: 
latter proposition was unthinkable by my ancestors and hence 
the row. Here we struck many things new to us: The pre- 
historic cannon around our hotel, with the sea-water holes in 
them, mouth up. still doing duty as hitching and old-time tav- 
ern bell po.sts ; but no one knew whence or when they came. 
Two hundred years before we were there, an English sailing 
vessel attempted to cross the water whh a cargo of thorough- 
bred horses for use among tlic Cavaliers of \'irginia; this ves- 
sel- was wrecked in a storm just off our coast, many of these 
horses drifted onto an island near by and their descendants are 
to-day there known as "Chinqueateaque ponies." They were 
not larger nor prettier on the salt grasses of that island than 
are our Shetland ponies ; almost starve to death before being 
domesticated on oats an 1 hay; but alter they pull through that, 
they become most shai:)ely coach ponies and trot ajid run just 
as did their long-ago forebears. Many of these were then in 
domestic use on the mainland. 



332 Recollections 

From there we drifted down to Eastville, the county seat 
of Northampton County, \'irginia, and while there examined, 
in the cramjjed English handwriting of that day, our most 
ancient continuous court records, from 1632 up to date. Tlu 
"Eastern Shore" of Virginia was settled by our colonists the 
year following the settlement of Jamestown in 1607, and being 
isolated from the outside world by the Chesapeake Bay on the 
one side and the broad Atlantic on the other, the French aim 
Indians wars, the Revolution, the English invasion of 1812. 
the Mexican and Civil wars never touched these people, nor 
interfered with the even tenor of their way; and so every term 
of every court has been there held on time, throughout all the 
years. In the early days of that Colony the Church and State 
were there curiously mixed, and from their earlier court rec- 
ords it is apparent that interchangeably each often tried cases 
for the other, and by proper decree directed just what penalty 
should be inflicted, and where and how. One of their early 
court cases, where the penalty was to be executed by the 
Churc'.i. concludes in this precise language: "It is therefore 
ordered, on the depositions of two witnesses, by this court, 
that the syd Marie Drew shall ask the syd Thomas Butler's 
wife's forgiveness, in the church, on the next Saboth nay, 
presenting herself before the minister, betwixt the first and 
second lessons, and say after him as followeth : *I, Mary Drew, 

doe acknowledge to have caled Joane Butler a carted , 

and hereby I confess I have done her manifest wrong. Where- 
fore 1 desire before this congregation that the syd Joane But- 
ler will forgive me and also that this congregation will joyne 
and pray with me that God may forgive me, or I also sufifer 
the like inmishment as tlie syd Joane Butler hath done." And 
in the event that she fails to comply with this order of the 
court, it is further ordered that "she be tyed by the thumbs to 
the tail end of a canoe, thrown overboard and twice dragged 



A Few Others Worth While 333 

across ye King's Creek in ye waters of ye ?yd county." We 
spent hours in our search for the writ of execution to see just 
how tliis court sentence was carried out in the church, hut 
never found it, and don't kno.v to this day how the case ended. 
Tliat record, Iiowever, (Hd settle on- question — "Mary" and 
"Marie" were one and the same among our early pioneers. 

We next went, hy wagon and sail vessel, respectively, to 
Ccbb's Island, out ten miles from the mainland into the At- 
lantic. A few weeks there, with an abundance to eat and 
drink, was ju-t what we were after, and there too we met and 
knew many characters. Among others, we struck and enjoyed 
the society of a pair of bachelor girl sisters from William^- 
burg; and from their unique apparel, corkscrew curls, and sim- 
pering manners concluded that in their youth they must have 
danced the stately minuet with the "Knights of the Golden 
Horseshoe'' and flirted and had high old times with the first 
boy graduates of William and Mary College. Then there was 
a Virginia preacher whose clothing from his shoes up to his 
straw plug hat were all of gray, and who swelled through the 
grounds with an air which plainly said, "Ah, you poor worm 
of the dust ! me and God permit you to be on earth only as 
long as you act like me." To us he was the "Vice-God" or 
the Island, and was in evidence only one day after his proper 
title became noised around. We met the prominent wife of a 
prominent lawyer there, spending the summer. Built on the 
lines of a pouter pigeon and armed with a boiler-maker's voice, 
this good woman was on parade from early morn till dewy eve ; 
but, from her peculiar motions at all the evening dances, we 
rightfully designated her as "the bucking walrus." The table, 
sea-food, fishing, bathing, boating, air, crowd, beach, and ev- 
erything were all that could be desired, and we were sorry to 
leave, but we did. In 1895 I again sjient some weeks at this 
island, for from the coast of Maine down to Florida no bathing 



334 Recollections 

beach was the equal in natural beauty to that. It 's off the map 
now, for some change in ocean currents a few years ago swept 
it away. But for over 200 years it was the favorite island 
iiome of many people in the sunny South during the summer 
months, and they, as well as myself, will regretfully consider 
its departed glory of the olden times. 

The "Eastern Shore" of Virginia is unlike any other 
known place in America. It consists of but two counties, has an 
average width of only eight miles, and is seventy-eight miles 
long. Figs, oranges, and lemons grow there ; the atmosphere is 
soft and mild and the people are "at peace with the world and 
the rest of mankind" ; until the recent coming of the railroad, 
no native was ever dissatisfied with anything. In fact, the only 
objection we heard was a mild one, mentioned by a young girl 
there who had spent some weeks up North the winter before 
and there learned to skate — they never had any ice on the 
"Eastern Sho'." Though they still bury their dead kindred 
in dooryards and gardens, sleep on feather-beds the year round, 
burn dip candles, and draw water with the old well-sweep, 
yet better or more hospitable people never lived anywhere. 
From Cobb's Island we went down to Norfolk in Virginia, and 
one or the other of us there intimated that Charleston, South 
Carolina, might not be a bad place to spend a few weeks. All 
right, and to "Charleston by the Sea" we went. That was a 
master stroke, for to me the three most interesting historic 
cities of the South have long been New Orleans, Richmond, atid 
Charleston. Then I had friends and clients there in the per- 
sons of Mrs. Anna W. Dargan and her family. They owned 
and occupied the great old Wickenberg mansion on Ashley Ave- 
nue and had often urged me to' visit them. With that generous 
hospitality which characterizes all their people, the Dargan^, 
Wickenbergs. and others showed us most marked attention in 
their excursions up the Ashley and Cooper rivers, over across 



A Few Others Worth While 335 

the bay to Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie, out to their peace- 
ful and beautiful Magnolia Cemetery, and elsewhere. I was 
never prouder of Fred in my life ; for he knew and when asked 
accurately gave the entire history of each of the many old forts, 
rivers, churches, and plantations we visited. In 1903 I made 
city and people another visit of some weeks, and in addition to 
the points of interest which were already familiar, these same 
old friends carried me over to the Isle of Palms, and then we 
spent a most pleasant day up at Summerville on the great tea 
farm. One of the many pleasing old customs of that far south 
country is that in passing by a graveyard gentlemen raise their 
hats, ladies bow their heads, and in low, reverent tones all 
murmur two words, "God's acre." 

In some way Howard and I happened to drift from 
Charleston up to Asheville in North Carolina. Since boyhood 
my mind's eye had been turned toward the White Sulphur 
Springs of Virginia as the one place for summer rest in the 
South, for I had been there often, and then it was in my native 
country. But Asheville is the better, for one can either go 
there in summer or winter and all the good the gods provide 
are to be had there. We found it a most delightful place. But 
en route over the mountains, we abandoned the sleeper and 
went forward to the smoking-car to meet and greet the people. 
We found some negroes there with their instruments, who 
could pick the banjo and play the fiddle — the mountaineers of 
the South scorn the name "violin." It required but a few dol- 
lars to unlimber these boys, and what with their music and the 
mountaineers' dancing, it was not many miles until that smoker 
was in an uproar. Everybody enjoyed it. As we were near- 
ing our destination I engaged a long-haired native in conver- 
sation and told him th"t my friend and I greatly desired to 
sample- the "moonshine licker'' of the country. He was cau- 
tious until fully satisfied that we were from Missouri and had 



336 Recollections 

to "be shown," and then he said: "When you get offen this 
here train \ou '11 find a-standin' right thar by that there depot 
one o' them damned electrical cahrs that runs up the hill ; you 
take that cahr and go right up that there hill till you git away 
up in town ; then you look off to your right an' you '11 see a big 
sign that says 'White Man's Saloon' ; git off an' mosey right 
in. an' git holt of that there whisky-man an' tell him what you 
an' Howard is after; an' then tell him that ole Jim Simpson 
sent you to him fer some of liis moonshine licker, an', by gosh I 
stranger, you '11 git 'er." This good friend's directions were 
followed in the letter, and he was right. But don't make the 
mistake we made at first. That corn whiskey is as colorless as 
water, but strong as wrath. Dilute it. Years afterward I was 
relating this experience to New York friends in a New Eng- 
land sleeping-car, when one of the gentlemen said that for forty 
years he had stocked his cellar at home from this same "White 
Man's Saloon." From Ashville we came down the French 
ISioad, tackled our. first guinea-egg dinner at Knoxville, Ten- 
nessee, and came on home. 

In 1892 a party of Godless "jumpers" took possession of 
our mines down in the Gallinas Mountains of New Mexico and 
my Missouri associates insisted that I go there and straighten 
things out. It was a long, weary trip, not unfamiliar, and I 
refused to go alone. Fred Howard was selected as my travel- 
ing companion, and together we went by rail to San Antonio, 
New Mexico, and thence by buckboard 100 miles to White- 
Oaks. President Ben Harrison was running things down at 
Washington, and in the Congress, Private John Allen had just 
made a speech in whicli he employed his then famous doggerel. 
About two o'clock one morning, while Howard and I were 
colder than blazes, each smoking in profound silence, our 
driver was slowly pulling through the sand of the desert and 
to me it seemed hundreds of miles from nowhere, when sud- 



A Few Others Worth While 337 

denly our front wheels went into a chuckhole — the off horse 
balked. I was on the very eve of both saying and doing things, 
when, between puffs of his cigar, old Fred then and there calin 
ly quoted Allen's lines : 

"Wanny runs the Sunday-school, 
Levi keeps the Bar, 
Baby runs the Wliite House. 
And, damn it ! there you are." 

To perpetrate a thing like that in such a situation, hour, and 
place was enough to restore the dead to good humor, and in 
some way we got into the Ozanne Hotel at White Oaks thai 
morning. Our managing director was sick at Punta de Agua, 
2C0 miles away, and without him not a wheel could be turned; 
but (luring our weeks of waiting at that hotel, no one ever 
complained that idleness was included among our many sins. 
Excursions on mountain and desert, horseback rides, carriage 
drives, visits to mines (the Old Abe, 1,450 feet deep, I recol- 
lect they told us was "the deepest dry mine in the world"), 
were of almost daily occurrence; and while we were there two 
theatrical troupes appeared on the scene at the same time. The 
American troupe was called the "Studds Grand Opera Com- 
pany" ; while the other was a Mexican aggregation with a greai 
long Spanish name, which I never learned to either spell or 
pronounce. Wc attended both, and my enjoyment of the Mex- 
ican affair was marred, for I diel not, while Howard did, un- 
derstand the Spanisli language. But both played to crowded 
houses every night at not less than three dollars a seat. There 
is noticing too rich for the bl .o:l of frontier people, an;l each 
always has the price. .X trained musical ear might have 
yearned for music other than that then made by those two 
bands ; but to me it was just right, for it went away back to the 
soft, sensuous music of old Spain, which there had its origin 
with the Moors long, long ago. With guide, wagons, and oth- 



338 Rkcoulkctions 

er accompaniments, we started before daylight one morning 
to explore the lava-beds and the two extinct craters in that 
region called the "Mai Pais," a dozen miles from the town. 
Picketing our horses and parking the wagon .^ we started in 
on foot and slowly wound along to the upper crater right at 
tl e summit of the lava. As the crow flies, the distance is only 
about six miles, but yawning crevasses in the lava impeded our 
progress, and we must have walked twenty miles in all be- 
fore that crater was reached. The crater itself has a diameter 
of about 200 feet, is depressed at the center like an inverted 
sk uch hat, and right then and there I made another of life's 
many mistakes. Our guide had lugged up two well-filled 
quart bottles, one filled with old Cutter whisky and the other 
with water. No accident, but I drank out of the wrong bottle. 
(N. 15. On a trip like that never touch anything but water — it 
doesn't do.) In the process of cooling, an earthcjuake, or some 
other convu'sion of nature, had tumbled that lava into all sorts 
and conditions of grotesque shapes, and on that account, as 
well as its crevices, we often had to walk over the sharp, jagged 
lava for miles to make a short distance. As mountain lions, 
rattlesnakes, and other undesirable citizens were often met 
with there, I carried Howard's Marlin rifle all day long, and 
it weighed a ton before we got back. On our return trip, that 
Mexican guide was accustomed to the walk and Howard was 
an athlete, and the result was they were soon way ahead. I be- 
came hot, thirsty, parched, dry, and tired nearly to death. To 
lie down beneath the shade of the few scrubby cedar trees 
that looked centuries old was out of the question, for that was 
still hot either from its origmal condition or the sun's raj>^. 
1 recollect I had a lot of currency in my pocket, and thought 
I would gladly have given it all tor a little piece of lemon to 
cool my parched and cracking tongue; but alone on the lava- 
beds nothing was left me but to stumble along. When I got 



A Few Others Worth While 339 

sight of cur camp, I saw old Fred and our guide complacently 
smoking in the shade of one of the wagons, cool, satisfied, and 
happy. But both were scared out of a year's growth by my 
lamentable appearance, and soon had me lie down on the sand 
ber.eath a wagon. Here, to restore life, they first gave me 
cracked ice, claret and lemonade out of a spoon, then increased 
the dose, and still later allowed me to swig this stufif by the 
tumblerful. Then I slept. That night we got to our hotel by 
midnight, and to my surprise no inconvenience ever came to 
me from that journey. A railroad now runs just east of these 
lava-beds and in plain view. From the window of a Pullman 
car I have often watched them for miles and miles in traveling 
up and down that valley, and the sight is a pleasant one, but 
this is the only way I will ever go into that crater in the years 
to be. 

In time our business manager, William J. Spence, recov- 
ered, and Howard and I met him' up at the mines, forty-ftve 
miles north of White Oaks. Active business at once com- 
menced. We there soon drove to Lincoln, forty-three miles 
away, the seat of justice of that county. Here was an old 
adobe Mexican town, with a record of crime within the mud 
walls of its every residence and business house, without an 
equal in America. For this had been once the home of that 
murderous outlaw, "Billy the Kid," and of Pat Garrett, wlio 
killed him, and from about 1878 to 1881 was the seat of the 
"Lincoln County War,'" so graphically described by Emerson 
Hough in his book called "The Story of the Outlaw." Men- 
lion "war" down in that county, and every frontiersman at 
once pricks up his ears and expects some story of their war, 
for to them no other in all history deserves the name. In that 
town, 150 miles then to the nearest railroad, four men met by 
chance who had each traveled over and knew the world — Fred 
Howard, Colonel D. J. M. A. Jewett, SherifY Roberts, and 



340 Recollkctions 

another, whose name is not recalled. To listen to those four 
as they discussed all foreign lands, their trade relations, peo- 
ples, customs, etc., was alone a liberal education. 

Among the many remarkable characters whom we met 
and knew there, was Michael Cronin, then the judge of their 
probate court, and a Lincoln merchant, who sported a linen 
(luster, boots, and a plug hat. For short his familiars called 
him "Alicky Cronin." His friends told us that at the outbreak 
of the Civil War, "Micky' was a sergeant in the regular Army 
and stationed at some fort near by, maybe Fort Stanton in our 
day. The commissioned officers of his command were all South- 
ern gentlemen, and purposed to carry the entire command into 
the Confederate camp. At dress parade one day these officers 
all made speeches with this end in view, and had things all their 
own way until Sergeant 'Micky" obtained permission to "spake 
jist a few wurreds to the byes." But he spoke with such 
powerful effect that at its close every officer went South, whi^e 
evey enlisted man stood by "Micky," and in that way he did 
more to save New Mexico to the Union than any other one man 
in the Territory. After Cronin was elected to his office, a pomp- 
ous and fine-looking fellow over at White Oaks, calling him- 
self a "colonel" and lawyer, in some way worked himself in 
as the attorney for a little estate over there of less than $300 
in value, and charged a fee of $50 for his alleged "legal serv- 
ices" ; then he mailed the first annual settlement to Colonel Jew- 
ett, a lawyer friend of his at Lincoln, for filing and approval, 
and among other little items was his voucher and credit for this 
lee. His friend was in good faith executing his instruction^:, 
but Cronin paused at this item of charge for a long time. Thi 
longer he looked at and considered it, the madder grew the 
court. At last, without a word, he turned over the voucher 
and slowly wrote across its back, "Disallowed. M. Cronin, P.J-" 
Then turning to this lawyer, he said: "Colonel Jewett, plaze, 



A Few Others Worth While 341 

sor, return this account to your frind vvid the complemints of 
this coort; and plaze say to him, sor, that as long as I am on 
this binch, it will take two min to rob the dead in Lincoln 
County, and by God ! sor, Micky Cronin is wan of thim.'' At 
the close of our business. Judge Cronin presented to Howard 
and myself each a quart of rare old peach brandy with the 
simple frontier statement: "W'id complemints of your frind, 
and this coort will fill full of lead the first dam man that say^ 
a woord about payin' for the licker." 

From Lincoln we drove by buckboard to Roswell on the 
Rio Pecos, about sixty-five miles, in charge of a Mexican 
driver, who spoke no word, nor understood it, of English. 
Over forty miles of that journey was made through the most 
God-forsaken desert I ever saw. No moisture had come to 
that country for over two years, an' occasional wild bird flev/ 
over it, and the ribs of e\en the poor starving prairie dogs 
could easily be counted. Covered with dust, d'ry, hot, and 
thirsty, we reached Roswell in the evening to find that neither 
love nor money would get us a piece of ice as big as your 
finger, nor enough water to bathe in. That very night the 
drouth was broken and such a rain as came down is seldom 
seen anywhere. Here the local land offices were located and 
our business came out there just as hoped. Two years later 
I was again in Roswell trying our mining cases, and the growth 
of that town had been marvelous, while it has since become 
r.ational in character. 

Our next drive was down the Rio Pecos, ninety miles to 
Carlsbad (then Eddy), New Mexico, and en route we made 
short stops at the ruins of an old Indian-Mexican house and 
at Seven Rivers. Here the gr'aveyard was pointed out, and 
we were told that in the Lincoln County War sixty-eight men 
had died with their boots on ai:d been chucked away there be- 
fore a single person who died a natural death was; buried in 



342 Recollections 

that cemetery. At Carlsbad we struck the first railroad we had 
seen for a long time; for since leaving the Santa Fe road at 
San .\ntonio, we had traveled by buckboard more than 500 
miles and had a good time. In going by rail on down south 
to Pecos City, Texas, our train was darkened by the worst 
sand-storm I was ever in. Indeed, this came direct from lae 
west and was so severe that the sand pecked all the varnish 
•and paint off the west side of every car in the train. We 
spent the early part of that night at a "baile," dancing with 
Mexican girls, took a late Texas Pacific train for El Paso, and 
went from there across into Old Mexico. At Juarez we strayed 
into a Mexican restaurant, for which I have since searched 
in vain many times, and there ordered and ate a dinner fit for 
the gods. It consisted of most of the good things a hungry 
man can think of, with two large, juicy porterhouse steaks 
that would have cost $4 the plate in New York, a quart of 
native wine eacli, and that too was good, and the bill rendered 
was only 50 cents apiece ! Over there we took in bull-fights, 
cathedrals, aguadicnlc, cock-fights, theaters, mescal, and all 
the other good things, and the same was true, so far as it went, 
at El Paso on the American side. At that visit, as well as 
.^ince, I have witnessed many a bull-fight in Old Mexico. Then 
too I have often seen our American game of football. In com- 
parison, the former is less brutal. Occasionally a life is lost 
in each, of course; but the one is as necessary and as enjoyable 
as the other, the respective civilizations demand them, and 
luxuries always come high. 

In the autumn of 1893, at his apartments in San Fran- 
cisco, California, I was for some weeks the guest of my old 
friend, Seymour Dwight Thompson. He was there complet- 
ing for publication by the Bancroft- Whitney people of that 
city h's great work on "Corporations," now printed in seven 
volumes; while T was on the Coast settling up the estate of a 



A Few Others Worth While 343 

brilliant young man who had once read law in my office. 
Knowing both intimately as intelligent globe-trotting friends, 
1 had for years tried in vain to bring Thompson and Fred 
Howard together, for their tastes, habits, and foreign travel 
made them alike in many ways. To my surprise, a telegram 
came to me from Howard one day saying, "Meet me at the 
Oakland INIall at 9 to-morrow morning." Thompson was de- 
lighted and insisted on entertaining both. So I met and drove 
Howard to Thom;ison's rooms. On the way he said: "I have 
a poetic idea ; you and I have met at many places, under many 
conditions, in the East, West, North, and South, but this is our 
first meeting on the Coast. Now this poetic idea of mine is to 
get you and Thompson in a carriage, drive out to the ClilT 
House, and there on the balcony and directly over the water 
take one nip of good old Bourbon to the Pacific Ocean." The 
invitation was accepted and the carriage, the dinner, and the 
drinks were all ours. All three worked through the day, but 
at night there was always a dinner at old Campi's, or some oth- 
er place equally as good, and such talks as we had at Thomp- 
son's quarters no one ever listened to. One dinner down town I 
now recall : As often happened, Howard and Thompson were 
discussing foreign travels ; I was dumb. One of our party, a 
brilliant English girl, asked why I did not join in the conver- 
sation, when this honest and truthful answer was given : 
"When these two great electric lights are shining, I simplj' 
represent an old-time dip candle and know it ; then nothing so 
much becomes me as profound silence." Thompson crossed 
the great divide in 1904 and Howard spent an hour with me 
only a few weeks ago. 

Fred Howard is generally a dignified and silent gentle- 
man and doesn't often break out in verse, but when the occa- 
sion demands it he can, as this incident will show. One Christ- 
mas eve, about a dozen years ago, on the summit of a snovv^- 



344 Recollections 

capped mountain down in Mexico, he chanced to meet a kin- 
dred spirit; and it further happened that each was traveHng, 
hke a gentleman should, with a number of native guides, and 
pack-mules loaded with all kinds of good things. Neither had 
ever seen or even heard of the other until that chance meeting, 
but by a sort of Freemasonry, known only to good men and 
true, each at once recognized the fact that he stood face to face 
with a master. So a great kettle was produced and into this, 
by mutual agreement, each poured out all his treasures in the 
eatable and drinkable line, and brewed a drink which they then 
and there christened "The Lotus Punch." No other English- 
speaking guest was there ; the two were alone on that Christ- 
mas eve with God and the mountains and the punch. Maybe 
they unanimously adopted the time-honored Scotch rule — "The 
best man is the last man under the table" ; or maybe they knevv' 
when and how each finally rolled up in his blankets ; but no 
one ever incjuired. As the next Yuletide was approaching the 
genial friend of the mountain-top wrote and urged Howard {''■ 
again meet him in 1898 at Dallas, Texas, and in his letter 
])romised an ample supply of their famous punch ; but business 
at home detained my friend, and instead of his personal pres- 
ence, with tears in his eyes and a vast thirst in his throat, 
Howard answered that invitation in the following lines : 

"The Lotus Punch. 

"W^e christened our punch 'The Lotus'; 

Of drinks it 's the most sublime 
Ere brewed for those happy mortals 
Who dwell in a frigid clime. 

"One draught makes a childish bauble 
Of tlie miser's hoarded gain, 
And draws from the love of woman 
Its bitter and sleepless pain. 



A Few Others Worth While 345 

"In the incense of this nectar 

Your neighbor becomes a friend, 
And your friend is made a brother 
Ere the glasses back we send. 

"Then oh, for a niglit eternal, 

In the land where snows abound ; 
A cauldron of steaming 'Lotus,' 

With bottom which can't be found." 

Edgar Watson Howe, Atchison, Kansas. Everybody 
knows that Ed Howe owns and edits the Globe up the Mis- 
souri River at Atchison, and that he has also written books 
that are read and known on both sides of the big water; 
but as only a few know his antecedents, I '11 talk about his 
earlier years. 

In March, 1893, ^^'i^^ ^^^^ I visited our old home town 
of Gallatin, and among many good things said about us, their 
local paper then printed the following concerning Howe: 

"McDouGAL ON Howe. 

"Twentyrsix years ago, when I, a stranger in a strange 
land, was wrestling with the mysteries of Blackstone here at 
Gallatin, a rosy-faced, good natured printer-boy struck the 
town and went to setting type in the North Missourian office, 
then ow^ned and edited by Kost & Day. We took our meals 
at Mrs. Emmons' boarding-house, along with Homer Sankey, 
tlie saddler. Captain Barnum. the jeweler, John Williams, the 
druggist, and transients. The printer-boy heard everything, 
said little, was full of quiet, quaint humor, and had sense, 
and I became very fond of him. So, after he drifted away 
from here, I kept track of him, but did not appreciate his well- 
earned fame until I read his 'Story of a Country Town' only 
a few years ago. That settled it, for the 'Twan Mounds' of 
that book is Bethany, the county seat next north of us, and 
Howe's old home. From these towns, Bethany and Gallatin, 
and the surrounding country, Howe's characters were taken, 
and as I lived h^re and attended courts for years at Bethany, 



346 



Recollections 



I found by reading the book that 1 enjoyed the personal ac- 
quaintance of a number of them, notably Joe Errmg, Martin 
the newspaper foreman. Big Adam, and The Meek; and no old 
citizen of Gallatin can read the book without recognizmg at 
once John Williams as the 'nervous little druggist,' old man 
Jacobs as the 'big. fat blacksmith/ and Harfield Davis' drug- 
store as 'the place where all questions, political, religious, and 
social, were discussed and settled,' although Howe does not 
directly name either. 

"A stranger then met in this country many men and 
women of strength and courage and brains, yet the remote 
rural districts, especially in the timber, were filled with thrift- 
less men and with pale, sad-eyed, care-worn, helpless, and 
hopeless women, whose sole object in life seemed to be to go 
to church and circus and to rear children— all of which they 
seemed to do in a listless, melancholy sort of way. With 
the hand of a master. Howe sketched the country and the peo- 
ple as he and I knew them a quarter of a century ago. His 
pictures are at once strong, dramatic. i)athetic, and humorous, 
and, what is better, human and true. To me the book was what 
some critic characterized as 'horribly fascinating,' and all the 
more so because, to my personal knowledge, the picture was 
in truth what art critics call 'a speaking likeness,' and I knew 
that the artist must be, as he in fact is, near the mountain-top 
of fame." 

Ed Howe had a brother James, another bright news- 
paper man, who ran a paper at Carlsbad in New Mexico. 
Only a few years after our Gallatin visit, and in 1S95. a 
friend wired me one Saturday that this Mrs. Emmons and 
her only sister had suddenly died within the same day at Gal- 
latin, would be interred in the same grave on Sunday, and 
asked me to attend the funeral. An imperative business en- 
gagement prevented going ; but in my office here on that 
Sunday morning I wrote a short history of the two sisters, 
alluded to their kindness in the old days, and mentioned the 
fact that James and Ed Howe. Sankey. Barnum, and Will- 
iams had boarded with them when I did early in 1867. and 



A Few Others Worth While 347 

mailed this tribute to the GaUatin papers. Upon my return 
home a week later, these strange coincidences revealed them- 
selves : Gallatin and Atchison papers were on my desk. In 
parallel columns of the former appeared my own tribute to 
the two sisters, and their funeral sermon, preached by their 
pastor and my old friend, Rev. T. M. S. Kinney. The one 
was written here and the other delivered at the same hour 
seventy-five miles away, and yet from the Word both he and 
I had applied the same sentiment : "They were lovely and 
pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not di- 
vided." In the Globe which Ed had mailed me, the first 
thing I saw was the picture of his brother James, and next 
Ed's tribute to Jim. From these I learned that James Howe 
had suddenly died at Carlsbad on the same day these two 
sisters, from their Gallatin home, had joined the great, si- 
lent majority. And Ed, too, had referred to the old days, 
in substance covering the same ground traversed by preach- 
er Kinney and myself. 

Elbert Hubbard, East Aurora, New York. The 
name and address of this editor of The Philistine, lecturer, 
talker, writer, thinker, is written; but right here a pause 
comes, for sj much has been said in print about Fra Elbert- 
us that his case presents a serious problem. In some re- 
spects to me he seems like another distinguished American 
who is just now shooting elephants, lions, and other fero- 
cious wild beasts over in Africa, for he has said and done and 
written so much that necessarily he has sometimes been 
wrong, although generally right. 

He was born and reared on a farm over in Illinois and 
the sweet smell of the soil of his native prairies may still be 
detected in much of his writing. Since early manhood, and 



348 Recollections 

that is not very far back either, he has been a cow-puncher, 
traveler, student, writer, and indeed everything else that 
could be expected in a man of big brain and red blood, except 
that no crime or misdemeanor, like missing mass, or murder, 
lias been laid to his door; nor has he been charged with suck- 
ing eggs or wearing side-whiskers. If he should be brought 
into court charged with either, however, and retained me, be- 
ing still something of a fighter. I should advise him to deny 
everything, demand the proof, and go into trial. 

In passing through this vale of tears, one of the most 
amusing scenes is the object-lesson ofifered by men and wo- 
men, too old to sin, taking up the role of the reformer. Con- 
s])icuous successes in this line are rare, were never numer- 
ous, and reformers generally lose their lives in the efifort. If 
the sole object be to "lay up treasures in heaven," then they 
may be forgiven ; but when after earthly glory, the contempt 
or pity of their fellows is w'on ; they make ample sport for 
others, and. not unlike the man who dyes his whiskers, fool 
nobody but themselves. So. it is rarely safe to name a baby 
for the living, for it 's hard to say how one will turn out ; but 
in the case of Elbertus it 's different, for that name may now 
be bestowed with tlie utmost impunity — he is neither a re- 
former of the world, nor does he ever assume the stupidity 
of silence or the dignity of dullness, but continues to write, 
say. and do things and make good. 

Ever since he founded his publication. I have read all 
his printed stufiF. including his "Little Journeys," and like to 
follow him, regardless of the question of the right or wrong 
involved, for he never fails to instruct and make me think. 
In all these years, too, we have kept up a sort of bushwhack- 
ing correspondence and it has done me no little good to help 
the cause along. Years ago, a committee waited upon me 



A Few Others Worth While 349 

anfl asked that I introduce some Christian Science lecturer. 
Being a free lance, 1 accepted, prepared my introduction with 
th? view of making the gentleman hump himself to hold the 
attention of his audience after I got through, but was called 
out of the city, and that speech was never delivered. A few 
months kter some lawyer friends were in my office one hol- 
iday, discussing this very question, and asked what I thought 
of that faith. I replied, " Nothing,'" but told them I had pro- 
nounced views as to the rights of those people under the Con- 
'titution and laws of our country, and briefly gave them the 
history of my intended talk. At the suggestion of one of my 
guests, that speech was then duly roared to them in mock 
heroics, and the question was at once asked, "Where is your 
manuscript?" My answer was that no word or line of that 
speech was ever on paper; when one said: "Do not fail to 
dictate that talk to your stenographer to-morrow, for you 
never said anything better." x\nd to please them, I did so. 
Then I noticed in The Philistine that Hubbard had written 
along the same lines, and mailed him a copy of my talk, telling 
him to run his eye over it, convince himself that the minds of 
great men sometimes still flocked together, and then return it. 
In reply he wrote : "I will not return, but will keep and 
print what you might have said for the benefit cf Philistia 
some fine day. for your stuff is the best American production 
since that Gettysburg speech." Of course, Elbertus lied like 
a tombstone about that, and maybe ought to take the Keeley 
cure for prevarichitis. for no other human effort should be 
mentioned in the sam? hour with Lincoln's great speech ; but 
he knew how to reach my heart and flatter my vanity, and T 
didn't raise a row about it. So in the June, igoo, number of 
The Philistine came out tlie speech I never made under the 
heading of "In re Christian Science." From his paper, this 



350 Recollections 

thing was copied in many papers and magazines in both Eu- 
rope and America and a lot of credit came to me, and all on 
account of my good intentions. While attending the Pan- 
American Exposition up at Buffalo in 1901, I arranged to run 
down to his nearby home and spend a day witii Hubbard at 
East Aurora, but some way missed it and always happened to 
be out of town when he was here. So I never got to lay eyes 
on him until about a year ago, when I saw by the papers that 
he was again in this city. My neighboring, bald, but level- 
headed lawyer friend, Thomas Adams Witten, had also corre- 
sjjonded with and for The Philistine, and I got hold of him, 
and together we went to Hubbard's hotel to pay our respects. 
From his pictures 1 recognized him at once in the lobby and 
introduced myself. With his characteristic drawl, he greet- 
ed me warmly, and said, "I 'm mighty glad to see you." Then 
1 presented my friend as "Major Witten," and Elbertus said, 
"Why, hello, Tom! how are you?" 

D.wiD J. M. A. Jewktt, Lincoln County, New Mexico, 
ijorn in New England, educated in England ; a British officer 
through the Crimean War ; a business man in Charleston, 
South Carolina ; a Federal stafif officer in the Civil War ; a 
civil engineer, lawyer, and politician at New Orleans and there 
served as the National Committeeman of his party, as well as 
at the head of the Republican State Committee of Louisiana ; a 
resident of Lincoln County, New Mexico, for over thirty years ; 
a traveler, linguist, student, musician, writer, thinker, and 
speaker — such in brief is the life story of Colonel Jewett. 

In the gulches and mountain passes adjacent to what is 
now White Oaks, in Lincoln County, New Mexico, rich and 
abundant placer gold was originally discovered in 1879. 
Among the many who there joined in the wild stampede to this 
historic and beautiful country were Colonel Jewett, my brother 



A Few Others Worth While 351 

Luther E. McDougal, John Young Hewitt, Dr. Edward Mor- 
ley, and others. These men were at the forefront in estabhsh- 
ing White Oaks, wisely and appropriately called "Heart's De- 
sire" in the novel of Emerson Hough in later years. The 
typical bad man, the adventurer, and the gambler always flock- 
to a new and prosperous mining camp, and, as usual, they came 
in and attempted to run White Oaks. Then by common con- 
sent the better element, known as "law and order men," organ- 
ized a vigilance committee, Colonel Jewett was made their 
commander, and the near-peace of the frontier has ever since 
reigned throughout the country. 

When I first met this remarkable character in 1881, he 
was located at White Oaks as a surveyor, lawyer, leader of 
men, thought, and action. His vast knowledge of countries, 
places, and people ; his command of languages ; his powers of 
conversation, speaking, and writing; his capacity for grasping 
and mastering any subject or situation ; his ability to meet on 
an equal footing and talk with all of the many classes one there 
c( mes in contact with, not less than knowing exactly just when 
and what and how to eat and drink everything — then filled me 
with admiration. Cheek by jowl, he had been with and known 
the great men and women of the wide world. At the head of 
his party in the South, I always suspected that he planned and 
executed the political destinies of his adopted State of Louisi- 
ana in the historic fight which resulted in the Electoral Com- 
mission of early 1877; but never knew — and, in fact, did not 
want to know, for I had my own ojMnion about it all. Any- 
way, the result of that conflict probably caused him to abandon 
the South, the East, and the other parts of the world, and to 
locate in New Mexico. 

In 1892 I was again in that country and visited Colonel 
Jewett at his then home in the town of Lincoln. In his front 
room was his law office, the middle room was filled with books 



352 Recollections 

and musical instruments — and he was master of them all — 
while back of these was a third, which was at once his kitchen 
and dining-room. Thus surrounded, if the Colonel was not 
the happiest and best satisfied man in the Territory, no one 
ever knew it. His town was then the seat of justice of Lincoln 
County, was 145 miles from the nearest railway, there was not 
a stone, brick, or wooden building in the village, and each adobe 
house boasted the record of blood, for in the days of their Lin- 
coln County War, from '78 to '81, this was the headquarters of 
the notorious young outlaw "Billy the Kid" and of courageous 
Pat Garrett, and a clash between their forces always spelled 
loss of human life. F'or days there I was charmed and edified 
by the talks of Colonel Jewett, my traveling comrade, Fred 
Howard, and two other gentlemen. Each of the four had 
traveled throughout the world, each knew how to talk, and 
each had forgotten more than the average human being even 
dreams of knowing. 

In February, 1894, I was engaged in the trial of two con- 
tested mining cases at Roswell, New Mexico. My frontier 
and Mexican witnesses had all come in, and both sides had 
announced "Ready." Then I heard that, clad in leather and 
furs like a Russian peasant, Colonel Jewett, without request 
or subpoena, and simply because he knew we needed him, had 
ridden across mountain and desert, through snows and cold, 
from h's home at Lincoln, sixty-five miles away, to testify in 
that case for my clients, and was even then down at the Mex- 
ican corral among my witnesses. I knew he talked and under- 
stood Spanish like a native, and as he had been the attorney in 
1 88 1 for my people over in his county where the mines were, 
was familiar with every question of law and fact involved ; but. 
with his usual composure, he left that corral, accepted my in- 
vitation, and came to my rooms at the hotel. Our visit and 
the friendly "round-up" were most enjoyable. His thorough 



A Few Others Worth While 353 

knowledge of both Spanish and mining law, the language of 
our Mexican witnesses, practice in their courts, etc., were all 
of great value to me and ultimately enabled our side to win 
both cases. Scholars and travelers have told me that the Colo- 
nel understood and spoke with unusual fluency seven living 
and all the dead languages, and miny Oriental tongues as well. 
One of the proofs that he kept abreast with current literature 
of the law was furnished in the fact that in all the years f 
knew him, I sometimes had a word to say in law magazines on 
some live legal subject, and not once did the Colonel fail to 
read these articles and then write me a congratulatory letter 
on the subject. 

Last year ( 1908) friends drove daughter Florence and me 
over from White Oaks to Capitan (thirty miles), and we there 
had a last visit with my old friend. His hair and moustache 
were then as brown and abundant as in the long ago, while his 
deep, rich, powerful, and sonorous voice was as strong, cleat, 
and musical as that of a boy. But a letter received to-day 
(November 20, 1909) from our mutual friend Judge Hewitt, 
of White Oaks, brings me these sad lines : "Our old soldier 
friend. Colonel David J. M. A. Jewett, died on the i6th inst., 
and was buried at Capitan on yesterday. Thus one by one the 
former residents of 'Heart's Desire' disappear. Poor Jewett! 
while he, like the rest of us, had his faults; yet many virtue^ 
and good traits were to his credit." 

With Colonel Jewett from Louisiana to New Mexico many 
years ago went William F. Blanchard. They were close per- 
sonal and political friends ; but at last came to the parting of 
the ways, which was unknown to me. One day, down in that 
country, I was asking Blanchard about the Colonel, whom I 
had not seen on that trip, and in the conversation incidentally 
mentioned the fact of Jewett's long life, wide learning, travels, 
etc., when his old-time compadre worked ofif on me this re- 



354 Recollections 

<ponse, which I then erroneously thought original: "Yes, as 
you say, the Colonel knows a whole lot, and the only trouble 
with him is, he knows so damned much that ain't so." 

Joseph, Chief of the Nez Perces Indians. In my long 
residence in the Middle West, I have met and known many 
members of various tribes of Indians, some of whom are not 
unknown to the American reader. The most notable of these 
were Geronimo, Chief of the Apaches ; Ouanah Parker, Chiet 
of the Comanches; Wah-jep-pa, of the Omahas ; Oh-lo-hah- 
wah-la, of the Osages ; and Chief Joseph. Through an inter- 
preter I have often talked with many Indians; but by far the 
most interesting of the "noble red men of the forest" whom 
I have met was this Chief Joseph. 

While lie and his tribe were held as prisoners of war on 
the Government reservation at Fort Leavenworth in 1877, ] 
visited these captives, and through an interpreter then had a 
long "council" with Joseph. The songs, chants, religious cere- 
niunies, dances, and other warlike demonstrations of this tribe 
were of but little interest, but not so with the talks of this chiet. 
Although he could not then speak, read, or write the English, 
and presumably could only speak in his native tongue, yet 
Joseph's terse, forceful sentences, wise words, natural com- 
mon sense, ready yet unaffected, graceful, and impressive man- 
ner and gestures, and earnest dignity of expression, especially 
when speaking of the wrongs of his people at the hands of 
the whites, marked him as one of the earth's great men, and 
llien made and left with me the firm conviction that he was a 
riio^t perfect example of Nature's nobility. Scholarship, ex- 
tensive reading, hard study, and culture, in time bring a few 
wh'les up to the untutored, natural-man standard of the old 
inr'.ian, but examples of this are rare to-day. Vanity veils 
from proud whites the traditional lore and native dignity of 



A Few Others Worth While 355 

tlie red man; ci\ilization might learn much from the Indian, 
but does not know it. Indians think ; whites consult books. 

Elizabeth Bryant Johnston, Washington, D. C, was 
a native of Germantown, Kentucky, but after the Civil War, 
made her home at the nation's capital. Aly two friends, 
Judge Sanilers W. and Anderson Doniphan Johnston, of 
that city, were her only brothers; while the gloriously gifte 1 
Marie Decca and Frances Benjamin Johnsto:i were her nieces. 
Much of her eventful life was spent in American and Euro- 
pean travel and she became one of the most interesting, en- 
tertaining, and instructixe writers and talkers I have known. 

About a quarter of a century ago she published her great- 
est book, entitled "The Original Portraits of George Wash- 
ington." Until this book came out, I did not know that "the 
Father of his Country" was so vain as to sit for fifty-six of 
his portraits; but he did. Many of these are not recognized 
now, for they were painted from his youth to his old age. 
The accepted picture of this great human character, and the 
one we all know, is called by artists "the unfinished por- 
trait by Gilbert Stuart." Under his written contract, Stuart 
was to be paid so much for this portrait when it was "fin- 
ished." The head and face were done, but that part of the 
body below the neck was not painted, when Stuart became 
satisfied that his work would be received as the greatest and 
best picture of our George. Hence, with an artist's pride, 
he refused to part with or "finish" it, and so that portrait 
remains to this day. 

Two of Miss Johnston's other books are distinctly South- 
ern and portray life down in Dixie as it was away back in 
slavery days. Xo one born and reared among the slaves of 
the border States as I was, and who still has in his veins 



356 Recollections 

the rich red blood of earlier years, can to-day read with dry 
eyes her stories called "Christmas in Kentucky in 1862" and 
"The Days That Are No More." Among her numberless 
magazine and newspaper articles was a sketch which I liave 
never seen in print — "The Story of Virginia Dare," From 
tradition, legend, anfl history she extracted and prepared for 
the press this exceedingly interesting story: Virginia Dare 
was tlie first white child born in the Colony of Virginia at 
Jamestown. When about grown to womanhood, slie and 
ninety-seven other colonists started from Jamestown to ex- 
1 lore the wilderness to the west of that settlement; but their 
happy good-bye was the last ever seen of any one of the party. 
At a recent date, however, in the remote fastnesses of the 
North Carolina mountains and among a remnant of some 
tribe of mixed-blood Indians there found, were discovered 
the supposed surviving descendants of the X'irginia Dare ex- 
plorers, for forty-eight of their families still cling to the an- 
cestral names of that party and possess blue or gray eyes and 
light hair. 

No one achievement of this noble woman was of great- 
er public concern than the organization of the "Literary So- 
ciety of Washington," soon after the close of the Civil War. 
T( getncr with her brother, Judge Johnston, Ainsworth R. 
Spofford, ATrs. Fred Lander, George Bancroft, W. W. Cor- 
coran, and others, she there started this Society. Its mem- 
bership was limited to 100 persons, and among its presidents 
were such men of national repute as James A. Garfield and 
Charles D. Drake, while its membersliip included such wom- 
en as Kate Field, Mrs. Dahlgreen, Olive Logan, and Mrs. 
C. Adele Fassett. They were the brightest, brainiest, most 
learned lot of men and women of earth, and nothing of pub- 
lic interest ever escaped them. In short, it was a genial ar- 



J 



A Few Others Worth WhieE 357 

istocracy of brains, where clothes didn't count ; and a night 
amid the boundless fields, green grasses, and limpid intellect- 
ual waters of that Society was always worth a year among 
the herd. 

Along in the late '70s and in the '80s, I often accom- 
panied Miss Johnston to these meetings of her beloved So- 
ciety, and was present with her one night when she read a 
paper on the Federal Constitution, once characterized by 
great Gladstone as "the most wonderful instrument ever 
struck off at, a given time by the brain and purpose of man." 
In her paper Miss Johnston took occasion to explain why 
and how it was that the four years of a presidential term 
happened to begin on March 4. That day was not originally 
fixed by either Constitution or law; but a resolution of 1788 
simply and only provided that on the first W'ednesday of 
Marcli fo'lowing its ratification, this Government should com- 
mence its proceedings under the Constitution, and as that first 
Wednesday in March happened to fall on March 4, 1789, 
that day was thus fixed as the day for the commencement of 
the presidential term. An:ong the many then present was 
the venerable George Bancroft, who sat there stroking his 
snow-white whiskers, and profoundly interested. At the con- 
clusion of Miss Johnston's statement, I can never forget how 
the great historian said: "What's that, what's that, Miss 
Lizne? Read that statement again, please." With a smile, 
she re-read her explanation, when the old man said: "Well, 
you are no doubt right, but you state an historic fact that es- 
caped me." 

One morning in 1897, Aunt Lizzie and myself, with a 
party oj friends, started by trolley to go from Washingtoi 
up to Cabin John Bridge for an old-time Maryland dinnei. 
While waiting to change cars at Georgetown, we were look- 



358 Recollections 

ing clown on the street below at the "Old Key Mansion" and 
discussing the time when in that historic house Francis Scott 
Key put the finishing touches on his immortal "Star-Span- 
gled Banner," when sb.e pointed out an old, thin, spare, shriv- 
eled woman at the second-story window of a little wood.-. 
cottage that stood just by us, and asked: "Have you ever 
met that woman, or do you know who she is?" Upon m> 
answering in the negative, she told me that this was Mrs. E. 
D. E. X. Southwoith, the great novel-writer of half a century 
before. Mrs. South worth must have been in her dotage then 
for her fad was to never wear stockings that matched in col- 
or, while she still read all the daily papers and raised the 
dickens in every language at her command with "the butch 
er and baker and candlestick-maker" at the market-places 
While still talking about the famous author of these long-ago 
novels, along came our other old friend, Clara Barton, pres- 
ident of the Red Cross Society of the World. In the im- 
promptu reunion then held with these distinguished travel- 
ers and scholars, maybe I should have recalled my early dis- 
advantages, but the honor and dignity of old Missouri, not 
less than the duties of host, rested on my shoulders, and as 
we all boarded the cars for the famous Potomac resort, the 
far WcFt was not wholly without its representative. 

The last time I met Elizabeth Bryant Johnston was in 
Januarv. 1907. I reached Washington one night and on the 
following morning she called to see me. She was then past 
seventv-four and liad l)cen my friend ever since I was a boy. 
Her talk was as bright as ever, but to me there was an ex- 
pression of her face that was new and I feared the end was 
not very far away. However, she and her friends dined with 
me that evening and 1 took her home. Once in the parlor, 
where 1 had so often been entertained, at her request I went 



A Few Others Worth Wnrij; 369 

to her room to light the gas — "I cannot afford to run the risk 
of being frightened," she said. Then she called upstairs to 
me: "Henry, in my library you'll find Barllett's 'Quota- 
tions' ; remove that book and the one next on the right, and 
bring me that which you find there." I did so; it was a pint 
of whisky ! Taking this down and handing it to her. she 
asked me to bring two glasses ; I did so, but said : "You 
must drink alone. Aunt Lizzie, for I am on the w-ater-wago i 
now." "Not with me, Henry; not with mc," she answered. 
So I fille'd her glass and put a very small drink in mine; but 
she protested, "That is not a drink for a Soutliern gentleman; 
fill your glass, for \vc must take one more nip of good old 
Bourbon together." So we did; I bade her good-night and 
returned to my apartments. Early on the following Sunday 
morning her trained nurse called and said, "Miss Johnsto i 
has just died !" Her sudden death was a great shock to me, 
and especially so as she was the fifth of my Washington 
tried, true, war-time friends to pass away within the past 
two years: Colonel and Mrs. Lewis Cass Forsyth, the Judge 
and A. D. Johnston, and now Aunt Lizzie. A few days later 
I there attended her funeral as one of the honorary pall- 
bearers of my life-long friend, and was again surprised to 
note this additional evidence of the flight of time: Out of 
the scores who attended that funeral, the old librarian, Ains- 
worth R. Spofford. and I were the only survivors of the many 
who nearly forty years ago used often to meet at the weekly 
gatherings of the famous Literary Society, and since then 
brother Spofford is gone. Next.? 

Fr.'XNces Benjamin Johnston, Washington, D. C. From 
the time she was a baby in long gowns I have known and been 
proud of this many-sided and rarely endowed woman. No 



360 Recollections 

achievement of hers, nothing she has ever done, surprises me, 
lor greatness and goodness are her birthright. Early envi- 
ronment, education, and association make every Virginian a:> 
firm a believer in blooded people as in blooded stock. On 
both sides of her house, as far back as history runs, Miss 
Johnston's people were of gentle blood, yet that blood inher- 
ited not only a strong strain of fight, but of intelligent, well- 
directed effort and accomplishment. I ler father, the late A. D 
Johnson, was my chief away back at the close of the war; 
her mother has been and is my friend; as are many other 
distinguished members of the Clan Johnston, and I am fond 
of them. 

Miss Johnston spent four years in Europe, mainly Paris, 
learning the science of illustration with the brush, to make 
clearer to the masses her mother's public writings and her 
own. Both are famous as magazine and newspaper women. 
But in 1889 our eldest daughter, now Mrs. Mabel Rudolph, 
accompanied me to Washington to witness the inauguration of 
President Harrison, and we were the guests of the Johnstons. 
Their mutual pleadings were so strong that I finally yielded, 
and daughter remained' East for a year, most of the time as 
the guest of Miss Johnston. En route homeward from New 
York that summer, I visited with the Johnstons for a day at 
Washington and then went on over into Loudoun County, Vir- 
ginia, to find a good place for Fan and Mabel and myself to 
rest and enjoy one good, long play spell. When I was a bov, 
the Loudoun Valley was as quiet, peaceful, restful, and lovely 
a.<- the Garden of Eden;. but I found the whole country trans- 
formed into a summer resort by 1889, while Coney Island was 
about as quiet. So, after some days of fashionable torture, I 
returned to Washington and at my suggestion these two girls 
first spent a season over at the seaside and then procured a 
kodak and went down to the home of my Virginia ancestors. 



A Few Others Worth While 361 

They knew I was especially anxious to secure kodak pictures 
of Ripon Lodge, in Prince William County, and of various 
historical family scenes about the ancient town of Dumfries ; 
but instead of this, like the laughing, careless girls they were, 
Fan and Mabel kodaked every "nigger and a mule," and every 
other amusing scene they came across on their trip, and one 
of the results is that I have no pictures of the ancestral homes 
so much desired. Dumfries was the Colonial home of some of 
our people, while Ripon Lodge has been in our family since 
1650. 

One result, however, followed this expedition down into 
Virginia, most fortunately for Miss Johnston. Her personal 
experiences with their little kodak revealed to her the limit- 
less possibilities of the camera; she at once commenced the 
scientific study of photography ; soon abandoned the pencil and 
brush ; perfected herself in her studies ; opened and still oper- 
ates one of the most complete photographic galleries in the 
world ; by the camera now illustrates all her own magazine 
and scientific articles for the press ; and is to-day in the front 
rank as an American writer, as she is easily our foremost 
artist. If there be anything to be achieved with pen or camera 
that has not already been accomplished by this gifted woman, 
I have never heard of it. 

Emma Leonuas Keelv McClellan, Crary, North Da- 
kota. This is a long name, but the subject is longer and big- 
ger in all ways. For many years her father, Henry Bascom 
Kelly, edited and owned The Freeman at and was a State sen- 
ator from McPherson, Kansas. There I came to know every 
member of the family well, for they lived next door to my 
youngest lister, anrl our tu-o eldest daughters many a summer 
spent their vacation with their aunt, where the Senator's two 
children, Emma and Gilby. were their daily playmates. 



3(32 Recollections 

After completing her education, Emma spent some year? 
in newspaper work on the Kansas City and Chicago daihes, 
and in the summer of 1897, under a contract with a Chicago 
syndicate, made lier first trip over the famous Chilcoot Pass, 
to Dawson on the Yukon in Alaska. While there that time, 
when not looking after the vast business interests entrusted 
to her care by the investors mentioned, she became greatly 
interested in the gold-fields of that far-away country, and was 
the ready correspondent of many magazines and newspapers 
throughout the States. Since tlien she has made several trips 
to that north country to personally superintend her many in- 
terests in the gold camps of that region ; but three years ago 
married Lewis S. McClelian, and they have since divided their 
time between their wheat and barley farms of North Dakota 
and that part of the footstool which we who live here fondly 
call "God's Country." 

While her initial employment was under advisement, 
among others Emma consulted me as to the probabilities of 
success of her contemplated trip into the frozen North, and 
told me all her ofifers, plans, doubts, fears, and hopes. T only 
said : "Emma, if any woman on earth can make that trip suc- 
cessfully, you are that woman." That settled it ; she went and 
won. Upon her return she was a guest out at our home, and 
the memory of her first night there is not forgotten. At din- 
ner she commenced to talk (and no one can be more graphic 
with the tongue) of her personal experiences of the i>a>t 
years, the perils and incidents of the long lonely journey 
across the unknown pass, down the Yukon, through the chain 
called Bennett's Lakes, the arrival at Dawson just the night 
before the ice covered the Yukon and closed all navigation 
and travel; the cancellation of many mining claims and the 
purchase of others; the wild life among wilder people; the 
tragic, dramatic, and comic incidents of journey and life ; and 



A Fi-w Others Worth While 363 

the final return home via IJehring Straits, Seattle, and San 
Francisco. She was so interesting in all these details that 
when she canii' to a stopping-point, about 2 A. M., not one per- 
son around t'.'.at board, from the alleged head of the house to 
the youngest grandchild, ever recalled when or how the serv- 
ant removed the dishes from that table, nor the flight of 
time. 

y\mong many things, Emma spoke of the great kindness 
then shown her by two pioneer Yukon chums, who had then 
been in that country for fourteen years, and knew everything:: 
and everybody up there — "Pat and Jack." Pat, of course, 
was Irish, while Jack was a canny Scot; but to her they were 
as loyal and faithful as any two dogs of the North. The next 
morning after her arrival there, Emma was looking about 
Dawson for a good square breakfast after her many long days 
of canoe, cam]), and march. She fell in with and inquired of 
Pat. Astonished, he said: "Why, you must be somebody! 
Walk right u]) to our shack and you shall have the best there 
is on the Yukon." En route thither, he inquired and she gave 
him her full name. "Too long," was his knowing comment. 
"Then call me Miss Kelly," she said. "Miss don't go on the 
Yukon." he answered. "Then call me Emma," she suggested. 
"Won't do," said Pat; "there's a dance-hall girl in this town 
that come up from Frisco who answers to that name; you 
are a good, square, honest woman and must have something 
good. What's your other name?" She told him it was 
Leonidas. He first said tliat was also too long, and then, after 
a moment's reflection, he inquired: "Say, how does Lonnie 
strike you?" She said, "All right." and by that short, simple 
name she is still known throughout the Yukon country. 

Among the many passengers upon the :^teamer which 
brought them out of that country were "Pat and Jack." 



364 Recollections 

Blessed with gold and mines and riches, both were returninij 
to the old childhood home across the water to see "the old 
folks," and paralyze the neighbors after their many years of 
voluntary exile in the far North. At San Francisco they im- 
plored Emma to go to the stores and buy each complete out- 
fits of good clothing, for up to that hour each had worn the 
garb of the Yukon, and neither knew anything about the 
'"store clothes" of the day. She did so, and then for the firs: 
time in fifteen years each appeared clad as a gentleman. They 
were long in becoming accustomed to this change, for in all 
these years neither had once seen the other except clothed in 
the furs and skins of the North. So they looked at each other 
long and lovingly, and at last the tongue of each found ex- 
pression in the oft-repeated words: "Well, I '11 be damned!" 
Pat and Jack stopped with Emma at Topeka and visitea 
with the Kellys for many days. Her talks in Alaska concern- 
ing her kind, good, motherly mother had a fascination for 
Pat, for they reminded him of his own mother back in Ire- 
land. As their train skimmed eastward over the Kansas 
prairies, approaching Topeka, Pat often paced back and forth 
in their sleeper, much agitated. Finally he said to Emma : 
"Say, Lonnic, would it greatly embarrass your mother, and do 
you think she would understand it, when we get ofT this train 
if I should kiss her just once as I would if she were my own 
mother in Ireland?" 

John Fletcher McDoucal, Daviess County, Missouri. 
In saying a word concerning the life and death of my vener- 
able father. I cannot here do better than to reprint that notice 
which appeared soon after his death in a local newspaper, and 
that will be done. 

In passing, however, it may not be amiss to say again, as 
1 once did in writing a short history of our Clan, that awav 



A Few Others Worth While 365 

back at the dawn of history the name we bear was spelled 
Dhu-Gal ; the members of the Clan were early called the 
"Kings of the Isles," because of once owning all the islands 
of the sea on the west coast of the Highlands ; later they grew 
rich and powerful and owned all that coast, and went so far 
in 1306 as to fi.yht with and overthrow King Robert Bruce, 
and for a time reigned and controlled all of Scotland. The 
Bruce, however, again gathered his scattered forces and gave 
battle to the Clan now known as the McDougals, defeated and 
routed them, resumed the reigns of government, and since 
that day our Clan has not been a potent factor in Scottish his- 
tory. My father's sketch was this : 

"The Passing of a Pioneer. 

"John Fletcher McDougal died at the home of his grand- 
children, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas E. McCluskey, in Gilman City, 
on Monday evening. January 28, 1907, in the ninety-third 
year of his age. 

"Born in Marion County, Virginia, on May i, 1814, the 
lineal descendant of the ancient Scottish Clan McDougal, this 
venerable man inherited from his rugged ancestors the iron 
will and strong constitution which prolonged his life so far 
beyond the allotted 'three score years and ten.' His grand- 
father. Rev. William McDougal, a distinguished and power- 
ful Presbyterian preacher, was sent as a young man by the 
Presbyterians of the Highlands of Scotland to take charge of 
an isolated band of that Church located on the Monongahela 
River in \"irginia (now Morgantown), away back in Colo- 
nial days, and literally died in the harness — preaching up to 
his last week — at the age of 104 years; while Mr. AicDougal's 
father and mother died in ^^irginia in 1861, each nearly nine- 
ty years old. 

"Mr. IMcDougal was twice married. First in his early 
manhood to Elvira Boggess, by whom he had ten children, 
seven of whom survive him ; namely. Martha, wife of Dr. R. 
L. Greene. Anadarko, Oklahoma ; Margaret, widow of David 
F. Megill, Tyro, Kansas; Delia, wife of Wesley Keplar, Per- 
ry, Oklahoma; Henry C, Kansas City, Missouri; Festus H., 



366 Recollections 

Princeton. .Missouri; Luther E., Eugene, Oregon; and Clara 
Elvira, wife of Dr. G. A. Tiill, Clay Center, Kansas. His 
first wife dying in 1855, during the Civil War he married 
Harriet Upton, who died ahout three years ago, and by whom 
he had two children; namely, Basil H., Van Wyck, Idaho, and 
Maude, wife of 0. Sterling Tuthill, Combs, Arkansas. 

"As a farmer and stock-raiser, Air. McDougal prospered, 
provided liberally for his family, lived well, educated his chil- 
dren, yet by his frugal habits accumulated a comfortable for- 
tune, nearly all of which, however, he distributed equally 
among all his children some two years ago, since which timei 
he has attended to little if any business, and calmly and quiet- 
ly awaited the closing scene which he often expressed the 
hope would come soon. 

"In politics, Mr. McDougal was an old line Whig up t& 
the dissolution of that great national party, and has since at^l- 
iated with the Republican party ; but above all he was a pro- 
tectionist. Up to a short time ago, nothing pleased him more 
than to tell of riding 75 miles on horseback to hear Henry 
Clay discuss the tariff cjuestion in the campaign of '36 ; of the 
disastrous panic of 'T,y, etc. He died in tl:e firm belief that 
Henry Clay was the greatest American statesman, living or 
dead. 

"After enjoying a successful career in his native country, 
Mr. McDougal came to Missouri, bought a large farm on the 
'Bancroft Prairie,' in Lincoln Township in this (Daviess) 
county, forty-one years ago, and lived on that prairie, which 
to him was the fairest and the best in all the. world, until the 
end. He was genial and companionable ; no one loved to hear 
or tell a joke or story more than he. Blessed with unusual 
strength of both body and mind, cl^ar of head and kind of 
heart, careful and close, yet just and fair in all his business 
transactions, it was his proud boast that he 'never either cheat- 
ed or got cheated,' and that 'his word was as good as his 
bond,' and botli were true. Thus he spent the ninety-three 
years of his life, and thus he died. No wonder he has held 
to the end the respect, esteem, and confidence of all who knew 
him. All his strong mental faculties were spared to him in 
a most marked degree, and up to about a year ago he could 
read and write without glasses, and kept fully abreast with 
the events of the day. Then body, mind, and memory com- 



A Few Others Worth While 367 

menced to fail, ati-l for months, in fancy, he lived nearly all 
the time "back in \ irginia' — with the family, the friends, the 
trees, the streams, and the mountains of his boyhood and 
early manhood, aid in this condition he finally fell into a 
gentle slumber, even as a chil I fall-, asleep, only to awaken 
un the further shore. 

"On Wednesday, 30th inst.. the warm-hearted, generous, 
good people of the 'Bancroft Prairie' — the* neighbors and 
friends among whom he had gone in and out for more than 
four decades — with tender hands, laid away in the Pilot Grove 
churchyard east of Bancroft the frail, wasted form of the 
genial old man who had been a friend of all." — Gallatin 
North Misiouridn. 

'Alfred ]\Ieade, Fairmont, West Virginia: This mulatto 
was born a A'irginia slave, but up to the day of his death in 
1907, then over four score years of age, few men of any color 
were blessed with more real friends, and I never knew one 
who more deserved them. His suavity, gentleness, and rare 
good sense may have been inherited from his slave mother, or 
from his father, who was reputed to have been once the Gov- 
ernor of that ancient commonwealth ; but I never questioned 
him and never knew, accepted him at his face value, and that 
was great. The spirit moved me to write my old friend a let- 
ter on New Year's day, 1901. As the Fairmont West J^ir- 
i:;iiiian. his home paper, printed that letter as a tribute to his 
memory at death, it is here reproduced in full: 

"At Home. 
"Kansas City, Mo., January i. 1901. 
"To Mr. Alfred Meade (Colored): 

"Dear Uncle AlErEd, — I have just read in The West 
Virginian an account of the death and burial of our oil 
friend. Isaac Davenport. I am sorry he is gone, for as boys, 
way back fifty years ago, when he was 'Kearsley's nigger,' 
we playerl and laughed and sang and fought tos^ether. He 
was black and a slave. I white and free : but amon<T the bo^'s 
of that countrv and time these little differences didn't co\mt. 



368 Recollections 

Later on, when I was mustered out of the Army and went 
to Gallipolis, Ohio, as a clerk in the Quartermaster's Depart- 
ment. I found Ike there as an all-around messenger and office- 
boy in the same office. Because we had known each other 
always and came from .old Marion County, Ike was espe- 
cially good to me. Right before me on my desk now is a pho- 
tograph of a group of ten of us young feJlows taken at 
Gallipolis on Christmas day, 1864, after we had all partaken 
freely from a big bowl of egg-nog prepared and presided 
over by Ike Davenport, and it saddens mq now to look at that 
group and know that out of the ten but two of us are to-day 
living. Ike was not the most reliable boy in the world in those 
days, but he cut a wide swath among the 'contrabands' who 
iiocked to that good old French town in Ohio from the Vir- 
ginias and Kentucky, for he could laugh like a comedian, 
talk like a preacher, or swear like a backslider, as the occa^ 
sion required, and was very much in demand. lUit Ike was 
true to me, kind anl obliging, and I never saw him when he 
was not in a good humor. So I always liked him, an 1 a^ter 
coming West, I never revisited the old home without hunting 
up Ike Davenport for a long talk of the old days. 

"When I was in Fairmont last September, of all the black 
men I had known when a boy, I met and talked to but three 
whom I knew as slaves — ^yourself, John Jackson, and Isaac 
Davenport. All the others, like most of my familiars of that 
country, were then sleeping the last, long sleep, and now Ike 
sleeps with them. 

"After spending two weeks there in the town_ and up 
about my old home on Dunkard Mill Run, visiting old 
friends, scenes, and graveyards, finding that I knew so few of 
the living, so many of the dead, I then realized the sad fact 
that I need no longer look for the friends I had known and 
loved during boyhood days in either street, highway, home, or 
church, but in the cemeteries for there most of f:em rest, 
and t^-'cre, and there alone, I knew almost eivery one. 

"Sitting here at home in my library on this the first day 
of the new year and of the new century, writino- about Tke. 
my mintl runs away back to the old slavery days — to you 
and Uncle John Jackson and Ike, and I can't recollect the day 
when I didn't know all three of you. Again T see outlined 
against the clem- blue sky th^ tall, straight, stalwart you'f 
form of Uncle John, following the plow away up on the hill 



A Few Others Worth While 369 

in a field on the old Cramer farm — just as I saw him while 
riding down tlie Pike witli my father half a century ag,\ 
And again I see him at the great camp-meetings the Method- 
ists used to hold at old Gilboa, along in the '50s out under 
the sliade of the great oaks between the camp-ground and 
Uncle Elias Dudley's farm-house, with the many other 'Cra- 
mer nigg.rs'; they selling ginger-bread, 'sweet cakes,' and 
cider, and he at his crude barber-chair, shaving the young 
gallants of that day 'two days under the hide, suh.' 

"Looking baclsward through the mists of the years upon 
those annual gatherings of so manv good people, I am to-day 
satisfied that what I most worshipped at the camp-meetings 
was the luscious ginger-bread soil by the darkies. And one 
thing that occurred there wliile I was eating a large section 
of that much-loved 'goody' and listening to the happy talk, 
laughter, and song of the blacks, I shall never forget. Now, 
I knew every slave in the country by his Christian name — as 
Alfred, John, Ike, Jep, Uncle Watty, and the like — and so 
when I heard someone sneak of a black man as 'Mister' so 
and so, I was puzzled. Upon inquiry, I learned for the first 
time that all of your race there had surnames just like whito 
folks. It was a most astonishing revelation to the boy with 
the ginger-bread. 

"And as to you, Uncle Alfred : I trust you will recall with 
as much pleasure, as I do the facts that, as a boy and young 
man at the oil Mountain City House, nothing was ever too 
good for 'Mister Henry.' and I was the only guest of that 
house, during all the years you were there, that" ever got the 
exact twist of, your wrist and elbow, and rang that old dinner- 
bell precisely as you did. No proprietor could ever detect 
any difference between your ring and mine. 

"Then as raw recruits we snent the dav before we 
started away to the Big War in July, '61, at Fairmont, in 
taking all sorts of strange oaths — to support the Constitution, 
upliold the flag, obey our officers, etc., and in drilling in 'hay 
foot, straw foot' fashion ; and when night came and our Cap- 
tain (Showalter) quartered us at thei same hotel, I was too 
tired and hungry to think of anything except eating and sleep- 
inp-. But I was the youngest of the countrv bovs at the ho- 
tel (the town boys sleeping their last night at home), and, 
with your usual politeness and kindness, you looked after my 
wants, gave me the best of the superb hot biscuits, cofifee, 



370 Recolli-ctions 

steak, fried chicken, vegetables, and then two kinds of pie! 
By George! 1 can taste that supper now. But 1 'd give a let 
of money to-day if I could get as hungry as I was when I 
sat down at that table. 

"Later on. when I got through serving Uncle Sam, and 
went back to that hotel in March, '66, and fell from the ope i 
window of room No. 4 on the third iioor, it was you, coming 
back from the 2 150 a. m. train, who discovered me moaning 
and unconscious on the pavement below ; you that carried 
me up stairs to my room ; you that went out in the storm and 
darkness and brought Doctor Brownlield, Benny Burns, John 
Crane, and Chap. Fleming to my bedside, and you that with 
them kept the details of that catastrophe a secret until I told 
the story there myself years afterward. When 1 arrived that 
day, th^ bo}S determined to give me a supper. As usual, I 
spent the evening with a beautiful girl, and when I got back 
to the hotel at ten o'clock, the boys -urprised me by their pres- 
ence in my room, as well as by the table loaded with good 
things to eat, drink, and smoke. You waited on us. To 
show them I hadn't forgotten how to do it, I took two, and on 
ly two, drinks of whiskey that night. In those days, as yon 
know. I could, and sometimes did, drink till 'the wee small 
hours,' and after two hours' sleep, get up looking as pious, 
virtuous, and sober as a priest. So I have always believed 
that the loss of the two nights' sleep in traveling home made 
me so drowsy that when I raised the window to let out the 
smoke .'uid sat down on the sill for the fresh air, I went to 
sleep and fell out ; but maybe it was the two drinks. Wheth- 
er drunk or only gleepy doesn't matter now, for of the eleven 
dear boys who honored me that night, all save three are skim- 
bering in their graves now, and the survivors are sober, se- 
date, and honor.MJ citizens, well along in years. As for me, 
at fifty-six I am little changed, being about as good and about 
as bad now as then. And looking backward without regret, 
and forward without fear. I to-dav cross the threshold of 
the new century with no new resolves or purposes, content 
with the past, hopeful of the future. Neither the long years 
nor the sorrows and joys of the century just closed can be 
mine in the new one. But I earnestly hope that while o ^ 
earth I may enjoy the new as I lid the old, and most of all, 
that T may do as much good and as little harm in the future 
as in the past. 



A Few Others Worth Whii^e 371 

"Among the many tender memories of the long past, but 
few give me more real pleasure than the recollections of my 
associations with the unselfish, generous, kindly people of 
}our race and color — tlien mere chattels. Wy knowledge and 
observation of them and their goodness to me led me to say, 
in a public speech here some years ago, that 1 should always 
remember the old-time negro slave as 'the kindest and the 
most faithful of the creatures of God.' Loving fun and 
laughter and music and song and dancing, the great majority 
of the slaves of Virginia had all their kind, sympathetic, sim- 
ple hearts could wish, except the one thing for which they al- 
ways longed — freedom. Thev finally got that ; but I have 
often wondered if, after freedom came, many of the good, 
honest old-timers didn't sigii for the return of the old slavery 
days, when they took no thought of the morrow, had no cares 
of their own, sang and danced in the cabins at night, and 
always had more fun at Christmas-times than did their mas- 
ters. The negroes of the new generation never got so close 
to my heart as did the old-time slaves. In them there is to me 
something lacking, whether it be the true politeness, gracious 
kindness, honesty of purpose, integrity, truth, and faithful- 
ness of the old-time slaves it is not necessary for me to say ; 
but certain it is that there is a wide difference between the old 
and the new, and with me that difference is all in favor of 
the old. St'Jl, I have ever been and to-day am the friend of 
the Black Man, and have done my duty in earnest effort to 
uplift and better the conditions of old and new alike. 

"That you and Uncle John Jackson are to-day the only 
two survivors of the good old slaves I knew as a boy is but 
another of the thousands of reminders of the flight of years. 
Man and master will alike soon pass away — 'Earth to earth, 
ashes to ashes, dust to dust' will be said over each, and then 
the wondering world will look down upon the grave where 
sleeps the cold, mute, black- form of the last American slave! 
That you will live to be the last survivor of that race I dare 
not hope, for you are now well stricken in years and thous- 
ands were born in slavery after you were past forty. But I 
do earnestly hope "hat you are to-day enjoying a happy New 
Year and that in peace and plenty you may live to enjoy many 
more. 

"The return of my good wife and children and guests 
from the New Century matinee recalls me from the dead past 



372 Recollections 

to the living present. By looking over my paper, I find that 
I have written you a long, long letter. I "11 take it to the office 
in the morning and have it copied on the typewriter, so that 
you can read it. It has been a pleasure to me to write it, for 
the story told itself, and then — 1 always liked to talk to you, 
anyway. 

"And so, Uncle Alfred, with grateful and loving thanks 
to vou for your many kindnesses to me as boy and man, and 
with kindly remernbrances to Uncle John Jackson and other 
old friejids, black and white, in bidding you good-bye, I beg 
you to believe through life that T remain. 
"Sincerely your friend." 

Oh-lo-hah-wah-la, Chief of the Osages, Oklahoma: 
In January, 1899, I was dining with a friend one night at the 
Pawhuska Agency, Oklahoma Territory, and in the land of 
the Osages, when a messenger appeared and said I was needed 
at Maher's Hotel at once. I went, and to my surprise found 
ten Osages awaiting me at the hotel office, with two mixed- 
blood Osage interpreters ; but wliat these dignified, painted, 
blanketed Chiefs of the tribe Osage could want with me was 
mysterious. The interpreters explained that these were the 
head Chiefs of one faction of their tribe, and that they wished 
to hold a "council" with me, with the view of my probable em- 
ployment as a lawyer to represent their side at Washmgton in 
the pending election contest between Ohdo-hah-wah-la and 
, Black Dog for the office of Principal Chief of that tribe. The 
head Chiefs tlien represented clans or neighborhoods; the real 
Chieftains of the tribe were elected biennially. As I had never 
seen a "council" and had but a feeble notion as to what to do, or 
how just then, to gain time and pull myself together, I invited 
the party to my rooms over the parlor on the second floor of the 
hotel, where we could have a private talk. All agreed to the 
change and we adjourned upstairs. I never thought faster 
in my life than for the next few minutes. While the inter- 



A Few Others Worth While 373 

preters arranged chairs for iheir Chiefs in a semi-circle 
around my table, I recalled the facts that above all things the 
Indian admired a military air, and doted on clear, short sen- 
tences and gestures. So by the time the Chiefs were seated, 
my Prince Albert was closely buttoned, a soldierly front i)re- 
sented, and standing thus at the head of my table, 1 announced 
ready for the "council." The Chief to my right in the circle 
was Oh-lo-hah-wah-la. He arose with dignity, adjusted his 
blanket, approached the table, gave my hand just one pump- 
handle shake, said "How !" and returned to his place, where 
he stood and made his speech in the Osage tongue. The 
Chief to my left then went through exactly the same form- 
ula. The others followed suit until all had thus done and 
spoken. Each of the ten speeches was interpreted, and to 
each 1 replied as concisely as any Indian, through the same 
channel. Then in the Osage tongue they gravely and earnest- 
ly consulted for some minutes and at its close thrice spoke 
the only English word I knew : "How ! How ! ! How ! ! !" 
Answering my inquiry, one of their interpreters explained: 
"They say they like you, y^ur military appearance pleases 
them; your answers are highly satisfactory; they want 
you to represent them as their counsel at Washington; 
they accept your terms, and will have the cash for your 
fees at this hotel by daylight to-morrow morning." So 
the "council" ended ; each Chief, beginning with the first 
spokesman, arose, saluted, shook my hand once, said "How" 
again for "good-night," filed out of the room, and I saw ther.i 
no more. Their representative wished to send a delegation 
of the "progressives" with me; but I said "No," and chose 
Julian Trumbly to accompany me to Washington. Julian was 
born here at Kansas City, on the present site of the old Union 
Depot, in 1848; is an intelligent, educated, half-breed Osage, 



374 Recollections 

knew all the facts, and could help me in their case. Together 
we journeyed to the nation's cajMtal, and there had connecting 
rooms at the old \\ illard. From my window on the F Street 
front we watched the pranks played by the big snow-storm 
there in February. 1899, and that fearful night entertained in 
our rooms some old Washington friends who could not reach 
their homes through the deep-drifting snow. For days I was 
busy arranging our testimony and preparing a brief in the 
case, but reserved Julian's affidavit for the closing. The case 
was at last set down for hearing by the Commissioner of 
Indian Affairs, ant! willi my stenographer I was anxious and 
ready for my last bit of proof; but Trumbly had disappeared! 
After an absence of over twenty-four hours, he came back 
to our rooms and submitted his statement of facts, when I 
learned that, like a true son of the forest, he had been holed 
up in a room sorrrewhere preparing his affidavit with his own 
hand and in his own way. This statement was couched in the 
language of the Indian, but was as clear, strong, and able in 
all its details as if prepared with the learning, experience, and 
wisdom of the Chief Justice of any Supreme Court in the 
land. Julian knew his ground, accurately stated the exact 
facts, and that, too, in the shortest words. So when all our 
other testimony was read to the Commissioner at the hearing, 
1 said to Trumbly : "When all our proof is in, I must make 
an oral argument ; my voice, you see, is growing hoarse, and 
you will oblige me by presenting and reading your own testi- 
mony." He did so. No preacher at a camp-meeting ever 
"roared" a sermon stronger or better ; all were not only 
pleased but delighted with the effort, and our case was taken 
under advisement on that day. During our thirty-days stay 
at Willa d's, my friend Colonel Van Horn was a frequent 
visitor at our rooms, and he and Julian became warm friends. 
One night Trumbly said to me: "I like the Colonel; he is my 



A Few Others Worth While . 375 

kind of a man ; he has more sense than anyone I have met 
here ; and then he talks with his head, arms, and body, as well 
as his tongue, just like an Indian !" 

La Salle Corp.ell Pickett, Washington, D. C. Among 
the many books written and printed by this gifted and beau- 
tiful woman may be named "Pickett and His Men" and the 
"In De Aliz Series," the last in four volumes. Then she has 
also written many short sketches which may to-day be found 
in magazines and newspapers throughout the country, and no 
one is more popular on the lecture platform. 

She was born and reared down in the tide-water country 
of Virginia, and in that part of the footstool, away back in 
Colonial days, when the planter did not wish to disclose his 
exact location, or the human interrogation point propound- 
ed the inquisitive question, he had the answer : "From Pi- 
anketank, where the bullfrogs jump from bank to bank." 
It was there too that when one wished to convey the impres- 
sion that he knew everyone in the wide world worth knowing, 
he was wont to say: "Why, sir, I know everybody, sir, from 
tide- water to Piedmont." The valley of the Piedmont affords 
to-day one of the most beautifully attractive bits of American 
scenery, and in his wide sweep to the westward the old colo- 
nist was not far from right when he stopped at that valley. 

When she was still a young girl, and just after he had 
led the historic "Pickett's charge at Gettysburg," La Salle 
Corbell was married to that dashing Vriginian, General 
George E. Pickett, then of the Confederate Army. The story 
of when, where, and how General Pickett marched and camped 
and fought from that day on to the surrender in April, 1865, 
is told in the most graphic and accurate manner in Mrs. 
Pickett's first book, "Pickett and His ]\len." In peace an^I 
plenty and at his home, the fearless Pickett finally joined the 



376 Recollections 

great and silent majority in 1876, and since then Mrs. Pick- 
elt and their children have resided nearly all the while at the 
nation's capital. Neither her tongue nor her pen, have been 
idle, nor could they be, since the soldier husband passed away, 
lor the writings and lectures of the widow and the mother 
have employed all her time ; she has there reared and educated 
their children ; enlightened and entertained her unnumbered 
friends ; held the confidence, love, and esteem of all ; and scat- 
tered rays of sunshine wherever she has been; and, although 
her ample locks have long been white, yet through the years 
she has preserved the graceful outlines of both face and form, 
while her gleaming white teeth (no thanks to any dentist, 
cither) are to-day like those of a girl. 

For many years we have had the habit of helping each 
other over the rough roads of life. So, naturally, when she 
called u])on nn to look over her first manuscript of "Pickett 
and His Men," I responded. To me it seemed that this book 
must be a winner. She originally contemplated having in it 
a full reproduction of General Pickett's report of his famous 
charge; but the Spanish-American War cam- on; with his us- 
ual great tact, President McKinley appointed her son, George 
E. Pickett, Jr., an officer in the Army; the North and South 
for the first time were reunited and the Civil War clouds had 
roiled away before her book was printed. So it was then 
deemed best to omit the publication of that report. Hence 
the public does not know to this day just what General Pick- 
ett said about Gettysburg. Mrs. Pickett had the General's 
original report and I suppose still has it, for I have read it. 
She also knows of the talk between R. E. Lee and George 
E. Pickett after the charge. Pickett made his report. It 
was never made public and was then returned to him through 
the proper military channels ; but out of compliment to the 



A Few Others Worth VVhieE 377 

memory of Lee and "the lost cause," and lest old wounds 
might be reopened and still rankle, the solemn and soldierly 
words of the great Lee were respected when he said: "We 
have the enemy to fight." No good could come now from 
again opening a controversy waged with so much bitterness 
through all the years, and perhaps it is still best to withhold 
both report and talk ; but a curious people will always wonder 
how and why all these historic facts have been withheld. 

William F. Switzler, Columbia, Missouri. Full of 
years, and with a full head of white hair, and long white 
beard as well, this good man slept with his fathers only a 
short time ago. From an early day in the West, he was one 
of our most forceful and perhaps most voluminous newspaper 
writers, and wrote a number of attractive an 1 readable books, 
if not always accurate; but in and through his life he was one 
of our most forceful and ]:erhaps most voluminous newspaper 
a staunch, vigorous Union man, and his people honored him 
with membership in the Constitutional Convention of 1865 and 
again in that of 1875. 

As a revered member of the Missouri Historical Society, 
Colonel Switzler was present when, m March, 1904, I deliv- 
ered my address to that Society, in his town, on "A Decade in 
Missouri Politics, i860- 1870, from a Republican Viewpoint." 
It was later printed in full by that Society. For thirty-five 
years I had been putting in an envelope in my office desk 
many forgotten references to the history of that stirring pe- 
riod, and then used many facts and things not generally 
known; but gave to loyal Democrats of the State the credit 
for having then saved Missouri to the Union Many of the 
over 50,000 who were Whigs prior to that war became 
Democrats soon after it closed, and among them was my 



378 Recollections 

friend the Colonel. With political conditions in my mind 
as I found them in Missouri, in this address I failed to give 
to these once Whigs their due credit in war, and had said in 
substance that the long Convention of 1861-3 was the strong- 
est, ablest body of men ever gathered together in the State. 
Colonel Switzler was to say, on the same day. that an abler 
set met in another Convention — of which he was a member. 
So for an hour after I closed the Colonel was furious, be- 
cause of these two statements. Later on, we met at the St. 
Louis World's Fair in the summer of 190;. and the Colonel 
graciously told me that he had since read my address with 
care and that it was all right in all things, except the Whigs 
should have been given their proper credit ! That omission he 
never quite forgave. 

Thomas H. Swope, Kansas City, Missouri. This public 
benefactor and philanthropist was born in Kentucky eighty- 
two years ago. graduated from Yale College with the class 
of 1849, ^"^1 "1 ^857 came to and resided in this city from 
that time until his death, whicli occurred only last week. 
Among many other public benefactions, he donated to the 
]^eople of Kansas City in 1896 the beautiful playground which 
to-day bears his name and consists of 1354 acres of pictur- 
esque land within the present city limits. At that time I was 
City Counselor, and when Swope Park was formally opened 
to the public, among many speeches, I made a little talk, the 
closing of which was this : 

"When the names of the hardy pioneers who pushed their 
way far into the wilderness and established Westport Land- 
ing shall have been lost in the tangled wildwood of memory . 
when the names of the strong men who, a third of a century 
ago, by bram and muscle raised the straggling hamlet of 
Westport Landing into the dignity of the city of Kansas City 



A Few Others Worth While 379 

shall have been forgotten ; when the men who speak and the 
women who sing and laugh and love here to-day shall have 
mouldered back to dust ; when generations of Kansas Cityans 
yet unborn shall gather, as we have to-day, beneath the cool- 
ing shade of these grand old oaks and elms and shall inhale 
the perfume of flowers, the invigorating, health-giving airs 
that blow so balmy nowhere as in Missouri groves; when 
Kansas City shall have increased its limits until this park is 
surrounded by homes and, instead of the population of to- 
day, Kansas City shall contain one million of people — then 
will there still be one name that is a household worl in this 
city, one man whose memory will be revered and praises sung 
— that name will be the name of the pioneer public benefac- 
tor of Kansas City — Thomas H. Swope." 

Seymour Dwight Thompson, St. Louis, Missouri, was 
born in Illinois in 1842; removed when a boy to Iowa, where 
his father and brotlier lost their lives in a prairie fire; 
served his country in the Civil War, first as a sergeant in the 
3d Iowa Infantry, and was mustered out as a captain in 1866; 
located at St. Louis in 1871, there became first the associate 
of John F. Dillon as the editor, and later owned and edited 
the Central Lazv Journal, commencing January i, 1874; ed- 
itor of the now American Law Review at St. Louis from 
1875 ^'P to his death; Associate Justice of the St. Louis Court 
of Appeals from 1880 to 1892 ; and finally died at East 
Orange, New Jersey, in 1904. 

From its initial publication up to about 1880, each mem- 
ber of our old law firm of Shanklin, Low & McDougal was 
a frequent contributor of leading articles to the Central Law 
Journal, edited by Thompson ; Colonel Shanklin often con- 
tributing strong, clear papers on criminal law, M. A. Low up- 
on all sorts of legal questions, while my only production of 
consequence was a leader on "Directing a Verdict" in 1878. 

In addition to his editorial and judicial utterances, his 
vast number of law lectures and legal monograph:^. Judge 



380 Recollections 

Thompson wrote and printed many law-books, and among 
these I now recall his works on Self-Defense, l>ankruptc\ , 
Homesteads, Passengers, Negligence, The Jury, Directors of 
Corporations, Electricity, Stockholders, Trials, Corporations 
(7 vols.), and when he died his enlarged Negligence in six 
volumes was going through the press. 

Up to date no other American law writer has either writ- 
ten so much or so well as Thompson. Others often merely 
compile, never originate anything, express no individual opin- 
ion ; but he personally examined every case cited, wrote good 
law, and yet had and expressed his own opinion upon the 
right or wrong of every mooted question upon which he 
touched. So he was a fair and just commenter, and not a 
mere cobbler of the theories of others. 

Every summer he took a vacation abroad, lasting from 
weeks to many months, and he always took along his eyes and 
his brains. In that way he became familiar with the peoples, 
languages, customs, habits, history, literature of the world 
as only the fewest travelers ever come to know all thes ^ 
things. That traveler understands nothing he sees, anl 
would always better remain at home, who does not possess 
the necessary combination of time and money, eyes and gray 
matter. 

From his legal writings, royalties, lectures, counsels, law 
practice, salaries, etc., Thompson's annual receipts were for 
many years largely in excess of that of the ordinary prac- 
titioner, but, unfortunately, he felt that he had a champagne 
appetite with a beer income, was an improvident spendthrift, 
and in consequence was always in hard lines financially. 
Nothing was too good for either his family or his friends, 
everybody that knew him loved, respected, and admired the 
man for his rare attainments, as well as for his goodness. 



A Few Others Worth While 381 

and had his annual income been a million, his output would 
have aggregated more. 

In law, oratory poetry, literature, travel, he was equally 
at home, and in all these his memory was the especial marvel 
and admiration of his friends, while no one ever conversed 
about it all in a more entertaining way. 

As one of the division attorneys of what is now the Wa- 
bash Railroad, I was often at St. Louis in the old days, and 
always there was a guest at the Planters' House, while 
Thompson lived out on Lafayette Park. Often there at the 
hotel, in the evening I found all bills paid, my belongings 
gone, and a note from Thompson saying that my luggage 
would be found at his home ; be sure and be there to dinner ! 
That was his way with his friends. With pleasure I now re- 
call the fact that one evening after dinner out there, he said 
to me near midnight: "I must review a New York Digest 
to-night and you must help me." He called his stenographer 
into his den, and we two began that review, dictating words 
of praise and criticism, and alternating in the work. This 
was kept up for an hour by first one and then the other. 
When done, it was the worst lot of patch-work ever turned 
out, and later on this criticism was printed just as we left it ; 
but no lawyer ever heard of that Digest afterward ! 

On another occasion I declined to go out to Thompson's 
home, because I had to take the Wabash Cannonball at 9:20 
that evening and try a land case up in Gentry County, 200 
miles away, on the following day. But he knew a French 
restaurant, with sawdust floor, down on Second Street in St. 
Louis, where we could get everything good to eat and drink, 
including jowls and greens, and imported wines from sunny 
France. Well, we dined there, and in that house nothing 
was neglected. Thompson repeated, in the French, and then 



382 Recollections 

translated into English for me, every pivotal order issued 
by the first Napoleon in all his campaigns. For Napoleon 
the admiration of my friend knew no bounds, and his talk 
was so thoroughly interesting that when I glanced at my 
watch it was past my train time. Thompson only said: 
"Now you must stay another twenty-four hours," and at 
once resumed his Napoleonic recitation of facts, campaigns, 
and so forth. 

When he was closing his seven-volume work on "Cor- 
porations," out in California in 1893, I happened in San Fran- 
cisco, and was there the guest of Judge Thompson for some 
weeks. One Saturday night he took the floor early and kept 
it until midnight, and then I had my innings for two hours. 
We were alone in that big house on California Street, and 
not many of our reminiscences would have gone through Un- 
cle Sam's mails. Finally both retired, he in the front parlor 
and I in the back, and the lights were extinguished. Then 
Thompson said : "AIcDougal, there is just one more story I 
want to tell you." In his bournous, he relighted the rooms, 
sat out in front of me, and began the repetition of his first ex- 
periences at the Pyramids of Egypt and of RDukier, his guide. 
But he had forgotten that he once told me all about this trip 
in St. Louis, and naturally I was not so much interested. 
There he sat, with the hood of that bournous drawn over 
ills head as he had seen the Bedouins use it, and looking for 
the world like the pictured Sphinx. I happened to look at 
a clock just above him, saw it was 4:30 A. M., and prompt- 
ly went to sleep ! Neither ever knew how long Thompson 
continued his talk. Then and there I had the pleasure of 
bringing together him and that other great American traveler, 
my friend and neighbor, Fred Howard. 



A Few Others Worth While 383 

Thompson was the only soldier I ever knew personally 
that throughout tiie war carrictl in his knapsack a law-book. 
But much of his vast law learning was acquired in this way, 
and he never overlooked either the planning and execution of 
a military campaign, or the fundamental principles of his pro- 
fession. He learned both while in actual war. Th: last 
right we spent together was at a Loyal Legion banquet at 
the Midland Hotel in Kansas City, not long before his final 
muster-out. In all his public addresses he simply talked, 
just as if he were dictating to a stenographer, and he often 
told me that this was tlie only way he could accurately state 
and impress his thougiits upon an audience. At the banquet 
in question, he gave one of the most graphic war experiences 
I ever heard, in his account of an expedition he made in the 
fall of 1861 from Kansas City to Sedalia, Missouri. Thomp- 
son was then an Iowa sergeant, and. dressed in citizen's 
clothes, he c: rrie I in his head an important military dispatch 
from on? commanding general to the other — probably Cur- 
tis to Sigel. Mis description of the mule he rode, his details 
of his three captures by the Confederate and two by th? Un- 
ion forces, the routes of travel, the perils and the fun of the 
trip cannot be reproduced from memory, and I only hear 
his voice anl s2? again the veterans as they listened to tliat 
vi'ondrous recital. 

George L. Ulrick, Carrizozo, New Mexico, is a native 
of New Orleans, Louisiana, was educated in the schools and 
universities of his native State, finishing his, scholastic career 
in the temjiles of learning across the water • but, like many oth- 
er high-strung youngsters of the South, had a row or misun- 
derstanding with his early-day sweetheart down there, drifted 
•• to New Mexico long ago, and first located at White Oaks. 



384 Recollections 

There on the then frontier of cur American civilization, Ul- 
rick sought to drown the memory of the sorrows of earlier 
times in hard work. For a short time he clerked in the store 
of "Whiteman the Jew"— since made famous through many 
books relating to that country — and then became in turn a 
surveyor, prospector, miner, herder, rancher, and cow-man; 
slept on the desert sands and on sheep-skins ; lived much out 
in the open, and finally became the vice-president and general 
manager of a bank which he lately removed from White Oaks, 
a dozen miles down the canon to the thriving city of Carrizozo. 
In all these years he has continued his scholarly accomplish- 
ments ; his love of books is still strong, he is widely read and 
up to date in the literature of the world's classics, few better 
know the history and language of the Greek, Latin, French, 
and English peoples, and in all this time he has never once 
forgotten the fact that he is a born gentleman. 

Not long ago he was down at El Paso. Texas, looking 
after some banking business, and on the street there accident- 
ally came face to face with the girl he knew and loved long 
ago at their childhood home in New Orleans. Story-book and 
magazine writers, at great and interesting length, and with a 
perfect wealth of detail, often tell just how such meetings re- 
sult ; but what's the use? All I now say is that these two 
children of larger growth were soon married and are now liv- 
ing in their own beautiful home at Carrizozo. Mrs. McDougal 
and I there spent a delightful week with them in May, 1909. 
after two such weeks with Judge Hewitt up at White Oaks. 
Ulrick still attends to his bank and looks after the busi- 
ness affairs of his legion of frontier neighbors and friends 
in the old way, while Mrs. Ulrick presides like a queen at 
their home ; and to each other, as well as to close friends, thev 
are still "George" and "Tish," much like they were in their 
old home "away down south in Dixie." 



A Few Others Worth While 385 

This generalization will be pardoned: Having read and 
studied most of the books in the library and being somewhat 
familiar with the peoples, history, and literature of the great 
Southwest, growing out of my many visits down there within 
the past, I have an abiding fondness for the people and un- 
bounded confidence in the future of New Mexico. To me 
there is nothing so enjoyable as the fresh, pure air, the wide 
sweep of prairie, plain, desert, and forest, and the unaffected, 
free, open-handed, warm-hearted natural people of that country. 
Nor is it strange that those who have long lived there know 
more than the average man. The herder of cattle or sheej), 
the underground delver in mines for gold, silver, copper, lead, 
or coal, as well as the dweller in desert or forest, has the time 
to and does reflect upon and reason out problems of which the 
world knows little. They live alone, see few, read little, and 
simply think. For many years there I have personally known 
and highly respected Jo Spence and his brothers. They 
went to New Afexico poor, and engaged in rearing and herd- 
ing and looking after cattle and sheep, remote from civiliza- 
tion, seldom meeting anyone save the buyer of live stock ot 
wool. After years of isolation and attention to business, the 
three Spence brothers sold out ranches and herds, divided 
their money, each one taking $75,000, and Jo and one of lii.^ 
brothers at once started upon and made a long stay in Europe. 
Upon their return thence, Jo was our guest here at Kansai 
City, and that young man then gave us one night by far the 
most interesting and instructive talk to which I ever listened 
on his personal descriptions of the relative attributes of the 
many foreign peoples of the countries through which they ha;l 
traveled andl of their international trade, labor, and business 
relations. Why? Because in his long years upon the plains 
Jo had been alone, reflected deeply, talked little, and, above all. 
had absolutely nothing to unlearn. 



386 



Recollections 



With and among such a people for nearly a generation — 
college-brecl men and women, readers and students, thinkers 
and doers, cow-punchers, sheep-herders and cattle barons, 
l)reachers and teachers — George L. Ulrick has been on the same 
free and easy terms as mark the man to-day. His personal 
experiences and stories of life upon that border are always 
tinged with a human interest that is little short of marvelous 
to the tenderfoot; while, along with other things, he knows 
everybody and everything worth while, from the Panhandle of 
Texas to the Rio Grande. 

When visiting at the home of the Ulricks, wife and I were 
driven on many short excursions out to the lava-beds (down 
on maps as the Mai Pais), to cattle and sheep camps, to moun- 
tains, to the famous Carrizozo cattle ranch, known as "The Old 
Bar W," and from there spent one more glorious Sunday down 
at Alamogordo as guests of our old friend, General Byron 
Sherry, and thence back home. 

Reui'.en AlEShire Vance was born in 1845 at Gallipolis, 
Ohio, educated along with my wife at the old Gallia Academy 
there, served throughout the Civil War in the 4th West Vir- 
ginia Infantry Volunteers, with his father. Captain Alexander 
Vance, and his elder brother. Colonel John Luther Vance, who 
commanded that regiment at its muster-out in 1865; afterward 
became distinguished as a physician and surgeon and died at 
Cleveland, Ohio, in 1894. 

After his regiment quit the field and he returned home, 
we first met. I noticed that he never attended the parties or 
balls with others of the younger crowd and learned that thi? 
v^^as attributable in part to his native modesty and reticence, 
but mainly to a vague suspicion that at the beginning of the 
war he had not done in all things as some of the rich and proud 
French of that ancient city thought he should. That did not 



A Few Othf.rs Worth While 387 

appeal to me. So I first made him my assistant in the office of 
the Depot Quartermaster at GallipoHs ; and next insisted that 
he attend all public functions along with our crowd, which 
then dominated the town. This he did. Nothing was too rich 
for his blood after that. When I was sent to Cincinnati as 
agent to the Quartermaster General, I secured a position m 
that city for my good friend, and we there spent the summer 
and fall of 1865 together. On bidding him good-bye at the 
old Henrie House on Third Street there, as he was starting 
East to a medical college, late that autumn, he said to me: 
"I will some day get back to GallipoHs and teach those damned 
rich relatives of mine that I have more brains and more learn- 
ing than all of them combined." He did. For, at the head of 
his class in all things, he finally was graduated at the Bellevue 
Medical College in New York in 1867; was at once made 
house physician and surgeon of the hospital connected with 
that college (an official position theretofore held by Dr. Wil- 
liam A. Hammond, at one time Surgeon-General of the U. S. 
Army) ; resigned his office and practiced his profession private- 
ly in the cities of New York and London, traveled through- 
out Continental Europe, and returned to his old home about 
ten years later, famed throughout the English-speaking world. 
His unusual abilities were long familiar to his professional 
brethren, and as a surgeon they always ranked him first. But 
I shall say a word about the man and his wonderful memory. 

While in New York he married a niece of Peter Cooper, 
the great philanthropist, and I have not met a brighter or bet- 
ter wife and mother. The light of my friend's life went out 
when she passed away in 1890. 

When I visited at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Vance ni 
1878; he was preparing a paper for some British periodical 
explaining the origin of two mistakes, the one relating to "the 
previous question" and the other to the "seal." But the real 



388 Recollections 

surprise of the occasion came when the doctor produced an 
autograph letter from the great Charles Darwin. I had been 
something of a student of his writings, and up to that hour 
had assumed that Darwin knew mankind inside and out bet- 
ter tlian anyone in his learned profession. But in this letter 
Darwin asked Dr. Vance to make a close, careful anatomical 
examination of an opossum and a rabbit, or other of the lower 
order of animals, and ascertain if they possessed a certain valve 
which he had discovered in man, and closed his letter by say- 
ing : "I ask you to do this, my dear Doctor Vance, for, as you 
know, I know absolutely nothing of practical anatomy." Dar- 
win's reasoning was all on purely inductive lines; but it was 
great. 

Dr. Vance was later practicing his profession at Cincin- 
nati, and while in that city in the Kautz will case in 1880 and 
1S81. I spent much time with him. He was so absorbed in 
thought and reflection that he apparently cared but little for 
his fellows, was characterized as an Ishmaelite by many, and 
those nearest him have told me that he uniformly spoke well 
of but two men — his brother, Colonel John Luther V'ance, anJ 
myself. But to these two he was always attentive, gracious, 
kind, and good. He was once in a row there with his profes- 
sional brethren and was to deliver an address in answer to 
their criticism upon one of his public positions. Knowing all 
this, I tried to leave him to himself on the day he was to make 
his argument, so that he might be thoroughly prepared. But 
he would not hear to this, refused to look after his patients, 
and laughed and talked all day long with me until we started 
to walk to the hall. Then he said : "Don't speak a word to 
me until we start back home." His answer to his critics was 
a marvel of learning, eloquence, and logic ; the lilt and swing 
of his tongue was grandly musical, and for a word or thousfht 
or clear argument he never hesitated for a moment. When 



A Few Others Worth While '38i> 

he closed, all conceded that his answer was perfect and com- 
plete ; that all others had been in error and he alone right upon 
that particular question. No one was more astounded than 
myself, for, while I had long known that he had more of both 
wisdom and knowledge than anyone else I ever knew, yet I 
had never heard him talk on his feet until that night. As we 
walked back home, in answer to my inquiry, he explained to 
me that he never prepared anything in advance, and always, 
waited for the inspiration to come as he was commencing- 
speech, letter, or whatever else came up; that in theory he 
then divided his head into a sort of an apartment-house, with 
just five numbered rooms on each floor, and as many floors 
as his subject demanded ; that in arranging any mental effort. 
he commenced by placing fact number one in room number 
one on t^ie first floor, and continued on until he had filled every 
room on that floor; then treated all remaining facts, rooms, 
and floors in the same way, until his task w^as completed ; but 
he said he must have perfect quiet while this was being done, 
and that up to date he had made it a practice to begin with his 
fact number one. used each fact in its turn and room, and harl 
yet to lack for a moment for an argument. Only a Vance 
could do a turn like that ; I 've tried it, and the scheme doe^ 
not work for me. 

One day while in his office a telegram came entreating the 
Doctor to take the first train out of Cincinnati for St. Paul, 
Minnesota, and there perform an operation on some distin- 
guished lawyer. He handed the message to me, and while I 
was reading it, the Doctor wrote his answer, which simply 
said: "Request comes too late; the Judge will die before 
morning." The next morning's papers contained a press dis- 
patch announcing the fact that this lawyer had died at mid- 
night. 



390 Recollections 

One day in i88i we went together to an old second-hand 
book store down on Vine Street there, where he had seen a 
copy of an ancient religious book antedating Fox's "Book of 
Martyrs," and which he wished to purchase and give to me. 
In going through the musty stock, I picked up a black letter 
copy of "Rasselas" and asked : "Reub, do you recollect when 
you first read this book?" At a quick glance he answered: 
"Yes. back in the summer of '65 you left it here in my den; I 
read it that night, and often thought I 'd like to look at it 
again, but haven't ; I 've often thought of it, and believe to-day 
that Dr. Johnson's opening in that volume is the clearest and 
the best production in the English language." Then he com- 
menced to quote, "Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers 
of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope"; 
and for many minutes continued to quote, and I think accur- 
ately, from the opening chapter of that wonderful book, and 
this, too, after having read it only once sixteen years before! 
Of course, Reub was exactly right in his statements of fact. 
I have kept "Rasselas" in my library ever since that night in 
'65, and read and admired its commencement, possibly a hun- 
dred times; but the quotation just made is as far as I can go 
into it to-day 

On account of his wife's health, Dr. Vance removed to 
Cleveland soon after this, and there remained until the end. 
There I often spent some days beneath his hospitable roof, 
and never once without both interest and instruction. 

In 1886 my eyes became somewhat dim, and, being very 
busy, I had them examined by many oculists near by, all of 
whom recommended absolute rest for the eyes and varied only 
as to tlie time, eome saying for a year and others for six 
months. As I could still read print just as close to my eyes 
and as far away as ever, I knew all these oculists were wrong ; 
but the eyes grew weary in a few minutes, and I determined 



A Few Others Worth While 391 

to consult my old friend at Cleveland. Mrs. Vance boarded 
the same train there for New York that I alighted from, and 
so we two old cronies were left alone in their home. Dr. 
Vance would neither let me tell him a word about my eyes, nor 
look after a patient, but kept me there with him day and night 
for ten days. Then with his powerful appliances he made his 
examination in less than five minutes, and with his usual con- 
fidence said : "Your eyes proper are all right, my boy ; a 
trifle impaired by hard study, not unusual for one of your 
years, but their lower lids are slightly granulated." I quickly 
inquired, "What 's the remedy?" and he answered : "Anyone 
of half a dozen ; but probably the easiest you will find is to have 
Emma [my wife, whom he had known since childhood] place 
a cup of cold tea, just the kind you drink, on your dresser at 
home, and in this bathe your eyes every niglit for a few weeks, 
and they will be as good as new; and, by the way, you would 
better stop smoking until after your evening meal during this 
time." These directions were all followed and restoration was. 
speedy and complete. 

We drove around the city every day ; Reub talked all the 
time on every conceivable subject, and to me his talks were 
not only educational, but always wonderfully interesting. One 
day he took me to a lunatic asylum, of which he was the gen- 
eral physician and surgeon, and while he was busy with di- 
rections to his subordinates, my attention was attracted to a 
noble, intelligent-looking specimen of physical manhood with 
a heavy suit of brown hair, clear skin and eyes, large and well- 
formed, splendid teeth, and apparently about thirty years old, 
whom I took for an attendant. I was somewhat surprised 
when this man approached me in a deferential way, said he 
could not write, and asked me if I would take the time to write 
for him a short note to his wife and say that he would certain- 
ly be home the following Monday. I was in the act of com- 



392 Recollections 

plying with this modest request when Dr. Vance came out and 
hurriedly said it was high time we were off to meet "that other 
engagement.'' So I excused myself to my new-found friend 
and joined the Doctor. Once in the carriage again, Dr. Vance 
told me this strange story : That seventy-two years prior to 
this visit, a young Ohio man left his bride to see a neighbor 
across the river in an adjoining county, and said to her that 
he would certainly be home "on next Monday" ; that upon his 
return trip the river was bank full; that the young man at- 
tempted to swim across it, when his skull was crushed between 
two logs ; that he was thereby rendered hopelessly insane, had 
ever since been a harmless lunatic confined in an asylum, an<l 
was then past ninety-three years of age! This was my friend 
back at the asylunj. In all the years he had preserved his 
youthful appearance, but his constant request was for someone 
to say to the waiting bride: "I will certainly be home next 
Monday." 

During this visit, it was the unvarying custom of the dear, 
deaf grandmother to carry the three children up to the nursery 
and to bed at nightfall. Then the window blinds in the li- 
brary were drawn, the telephone receiver hung down, the door- 
bell was muffled, and Reub would quietly say : "You have done 
nobly in your profession, my boy ; I think I have done^ fairly 
well in mine ; and now there is nothing too good for you and 
me." At his request a trained servant brought in a quart of 
Benedictine and a box of cigars and the world was ours ! At 
midnight we always went up town to a famous old club-room., 
and tliere had either a game or a fish dinner, with La Toure 
lilanche and more cigars. As I write now, I have a distinct 
recollection that at four o'clock one morning at his home, old 
Reub stood at the foot of my bed and both sung, loudly but 
not too well, that great old soldier song, "Marching througli 
Georgia." 



1 



A Few Others Worth While 393 

While I was at the home of Dr. \'ance in Cleveland once, 
he had a call to go to a cemetery there and make a post-mortem 
examination of a lady who had been in her grave for thirty 
days, and a stranger to him, whose brothers then feared she 
had died some unnatural death. He refused to go unless "a 
distinguished physician," who was visiting him from abroad, 
should go with him ; and then a certain local surgeon was to do 
the actual cutting. His terms being agreed too, we drove out ; 
I as "tiie distinguished physician from abroad." The local man 
did all the rough work, and Dr. Vance and I talked, while he 
was dictating the cutting and never removed his gloves, nor 
did he seem to pay much attention to the matter in hand in 
any way. At the close of the examination, Vance broke a little 
twig from an overhanging tree, with it scraped up and down 
on the inner lining of the dead woman's stomach for a mo- 
ment, and then said to me in his apparently careless way: 
"Arsenical poisoning, administered in ice cream." We drove 
home. That night the woman's husband left the city. The 
chemical analysis later revealed the fact that she had died of 
arsenical poison and the proof at the inquest showed that 
the night of her death she had taken ice cream with her hus- 
band at a city cafe. 

En route East, I spent a day with Vance after the death 
of his good wife. We never met again. He drove me out into 
the country and there the day was passed. From the hour ot 
her death he had never once spoken his wife's name to anyone ; 
but he talked to me of Annie and his great loss all day long. 
He had a private library of over 8,000 volumes, and without 
reading a book in it as we do, he knew everything that was in 
each. His wife and I twice arranged these books, but he had 
no order or system about him, and not many months elapsed 
before no one else could know where to find any given volume 
but himself. Just as I was leaving his house to catch the east- 



394 Recollections 

ward train that evening, the Doctor himself answered a tele- 
phone call, and I heard him say, "No, I will not go ; the call 
and an operation would be useless; the boy will die." He ex- 
plained to me on the way to the station that the boy in ques- 
tion had attempted to get into a show, under a circus tent, 
when an attendant had hit him from above across the throat 
with a rubber pipe ; how that rubber had severed the windpipe 
and how and why there was absolutely no hope. The follow- 
ing morning, in glancing through a Bufifalo paper en route 
East, I saw an account of this accident ; how the blow with that 
rubber pipe had twisted and broken the air-tubes in the throat, 
filled the lungs, and caused the boy's death at midnight. 

How, why, whence came the many marvelous powers of 
Dr. Vance as an eloquent and impressive speaker, writer, and 
talker, clear and accurate thinker, matchless physician au'l 
surgeon? Spiritualists account for it all upon the theory that, 
either consciously or unconsciously, he was a medium and 
knew and did all things because of that; churchmen say he 
was inspired and that these things all came to him direct from 
God; science says — but what's the use? since "the sum of all 
science is — perhaps." To me the great secret is locked up, the 
key lost, and I only know that within my time and circle there 
has not been given to the human race a duplicate of Reuben 
Aleshire Vance. 

Eugene F. Ware, Kansas City, Kansas. In addition to 
his high standing as one of the foremost lawyers of the West, 
Ware has written many exceedingly clever things in both prose 
and poetry, but that which is widest and best known is his vol- 
ume of verse under the pen-name of "Ironquill." Ever since I 
have known him, he has had the habit of turning aside from 
the law, taking his pen in hand, and dashing off a lot of good 
things as a mere recreation. His profession has brought him 



I 



A Few Others Worth While 395 

gold ar.d fame galore, but his theory of human lite seems not 
unlike that of an old slave ferryman I knew as a boy in the 
mountains of Viriginia. Too old for farm work, his master 
permitted this negro to operate the ferry across Greenbrier 
River and retain the proceeds ; his ferriage was universally 
"a fip an' a bit, suh" (six and a fourth cents) ; but one day 
an impecunious mountaineer came along and urged my old 
friend to "set him across" free of charge, as he didn't have a 
cent. The old darkey looked him over, shook his head, and re- 
fused, saying: "As you have no money, I don't see as it makes 
a dam bit of difference which side of the river you is on." 

President Roosevelt never did a wiser act than when he 
appointed Ware as the Commissioner of Pensions, and it was 
no fault of "Ironquill" that holding down public office didn't 
suit the complexion of this gifted man, who was cramped in 
Washington, "an' kep a-honin' " for the wide prairies and 
gentle breezes of Kansas. While Ware held that office, and 
L'-'slie M. Shaw was Secretary of the Treasury and Philander 
C. Knox Secretary of War, the daily press said the following 
lines were secretly passed from one to the other of these grave 
and good statesmen; and, knowing the men, if a row is ever 
raised about it, I would advise each to enter a plea of "guilty" 
and save both time and trouble : 



" 'Go ask papa,' the maiden said. 
The young man knew her papa was dead ; 
He also knew the life he had led; 
And he understood lier when she said, 
'Go ask papa.' — W^arc. 

'The young man went down to see the old chap, 
Who was wheeling coke and as black as a Jap. 
'Can you support her?' inquirerl her pap. 
'I 've held her for hours,' he said, 'on my lap.' 
Then her papa fainted away." — Shaw. 



396 Recollections 

"The young man returned right up through the cellar, 
And found the young lady and started to tell her 
About her old pap, and her heart it grew meller, 
And she said to the youth, 'You're a hell of a feller.' 
And so they were married that day." — Knox. 

"Watty" (colored), Fairmont, West Virgmia. To my let- 
ter of eight years ago now, to Uncle Alfred Meade (heretofore 
printed), I now add a word and give one incident in the life 
of another boyhood slave friend of mine, whom I mentioned — 
"Uncle Watty." I never heard any other name for him, but 
from my earliest recollection until his death late in the war, 
I often met this rare specimen of black manhood, for he was 
owned by a neighbor of my father. To me as a boy, "Uncle 
Watty" seemed to fill to the limit the old-time song writer's 
description of "Nicodemus, the Slave," for certainly he was 
not only "reckoned as part of the salt of the earth," but 

"His great heart with kindness was filled to the brim; 
He obeyed who was born to command, 
And he longed for the dawning which then was so dim — 
For that morning which now was at hand." 

His powerful physical frame, attributes of body, mind, and 
soul, loyalty to constituted authority, gentle serenity, yet 
fearsome wrath when aroused, great common sense, and his 
always hope for freedom, awed and impressed whites and 
blacks alike. 

While I was acting as our batalion commissary in the 
summer of 1863, 1 alighted from an early morning train at the 
Fairmont station and was walking out the Pike to my aunt 
Mitty Hoult's, just west of that town, when I overtook "Uncle 
Watty." He had a fiddle under his arm, which he had played 
all that night over across the Monongahela River, near Pala- 
tine, at a little dance for the darkies at Colonel Haymond's, and 
he was then past ninety-three. At that time President Lincoln 



A Few Others Wokth While 397 

had promulgated his famous Emancipation Proclamation ; but 
this affected only the slaves in "those States and parts of States" 
then in "actual rebellion against the United States" ; it did not 
apply to slaves in the territory embraced within the then form- 
ing State of West Virginia, nor any other of the border slave 
States, and it was then the belief of all our people that the 
Government would in time liberate all slaves held in the States 
not then in open rebellion and follow Lincoln's policy by com- 
pensating loyal owners at least for the loss of their slave prop- 
erty. So firm was this conviction that slaves >vere bought and 
sold after this talk, and I recall the fact that the last negro 
slave I ever saw on the auction-block was a black man, past 
middle age, who was publicly sold in front of the court-house 
in Clarksburg, West Virginia, the county seat next to my own, 
in October, 1863, for $288. 

"Uncle Watty's" horse sense enabled him to grasp and 
understand his exact status under law and proclamation; he 
knew too that his master was always loyal and that he was 
still a slave. Recognizing the outline of his form, I quickened 
my pace, overtook and cheerily greeted him, for I was always 
fond of "Uncle Watty." As we walked along together, our 
talk naturally turned upon the war and then upon that subject 
that was always upon his mind — freedom. Finally, with that 
confidence and want of understanding which the young often 
exhibit, I asked : "Now, what the devil do you care about 
freedom, Uncle Watty? I know that your master cheerfully 
furnishes you all your clothes, you and your family have a 
good home to live in, nothing to do, plenty to eat and wear, 
and even a good horse and buggy, and why should you wish 
to be free ?" The old man looked at me, and tears were in his 
eyes as he answered : "Master Harry, you don't understand, 
you can't ; you was born free and always will be free ; but I 
tell you now that if my old master should say to me to-day, 



398 Recollections 

'Wat, you is free,' I "d jump as high, as your haid, honey." 
Then he told me that in a dream or vision in the cabin one 
night a song had come to him on freedom, and this he offered 
to sing to me. So we two stopped in the middle of that road, 
and as long as I live 1 can never foret the way that grand old 
black man looked to me in the gray of that early summer morn- 
ing as he sung in full, rich tones the song, in which, as nearly 
as I now recall them, were these lines : 

"Although our skins be black as jet, 
Our Ijair be curled, our noses Hat, 
Shall we for this no freedom have 
Until we find it in the grave ; 
And never drag the golden chain. 
And never enjoy ourselves as men? 
When will Jehovah hear our cries, 
That we may ever with him rise?" 

At the stile leading into Aunt Mit's< home we parted at day- 
dawn, and I do not recollect ever seeing "Uncle Watty" after- 
ward. The freedom for which his great soul yearned he found 
in the grave about the close of the war ; and constitutional, law- 
ful, and un(|uestioned freedom came to all American slaves 
when the thirteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution 
was declared adopted on December i8, 1865. 

Edward Lindsay Williams, Washington, D. C. Some- 
where there may live a more honest, reliable, trustworthy, 
faithful black man, but I have never met him. Edward was 
born a slave, a LINDSAY, in his boyhood was owned by my 
mother's people over in Virginia, and from there refugeed to 
Washington in the war, where his stepfather added the "'Wil- 
liams." From that lowly condition, by his own personal ef- 
forts, he has come up to his present position and, like the level- 
headed darkey he is, still knows and keeps his place and zvorks. 
If there be anything in his line he cannot do, and do it better 



ll 



u 



A Few Others Worth Whiee 399 

than most men, I have yet to hear about it. tlis years of free- 
dom have been mainly spent at the hotels of his city in looking 
after special guests, and in my many visits there I always stop 
at the house where he is employed, no matter where, and there 
he has looked after and cared for me since my early manhood. 
In all these years he has been as respectful and devoted to and 
fond of me as ever slave was to his master, and this afifection 
is returned, for I was reared among his kind and know and 
understand them as no stranger can. The old South can alone 
settle the negro question, for the North knows that subject 
only from books. 

At the time of the big fire at Willard's old hotel at three 
o'clock on the morning of January 2"], 1901, I was asleep in 
my room there. Edward knew the danger, rushed to my door, 
and shouted : "The house is on fire ! For God's sake, get up, 
and get out quick !" Not comprehending the situation, and 
only half awake, I answered : "There is no hurry about this, 
Edward ; you are excited ; the walls of my room are not warm 
yet ; but I '11 get up." So I arose leisurely, turned on the light, 
and was just getting into my breeches, when this wild-eyed 
boy rushed in, yelled, "For God's sake, quick!'' and before one 
could turn around, had all my belongings either in my grip 
or on his arm. The fire had broken out just across my hall- 
way and I didn't know it. nor could I have escaped alone. 
With my arms around him, we got into the hall, but escape to 
our left w a impossible, for all in that direction was flame and 
smoke. So through the blackness of darkness and choking 
smoke we two stumbled over chairs and hassocks in the parlor 
to the right, making our way to the F Street entrance. We 
should both have been as, familiar w^th that house' as with our 
own fingers ; but once in that awful smoke Edward stopped 
short, and, thinking only of saving me and never once of him- 
self, said : "Oh, suh, you is lost ; gone shore !" "What is the 



400 Recollections 

trouble, Edward?" I asked. "I don't know where we're at." 
he said. It was dark as a dungeon, and while I knew no moi e 
about it than he did, yet in a reassuring voice L said: "Go 
on, my boy ; we will yet come out somewhere all right." When 
at last we emerged under the electric light on the F Street 
front, the first thing I recall was his black head, and a Greek 
god in ebony never looked so good to me. Just then my bare 
feet struck the ice and the snow, for the mercury was low ana 
at that moment my clothing scanty. I now recall a convulsive 
rigor and then a'l was dark. Just how he got me across the 
wide .street and into the Ebbitt House I don't recollect, but 
the first thing I knew, Edward had gotten me into my overcoat 
and was putting on my shoes. Of my appearance at that hotel 
a nimble-fingered but gracious newspaper man printed : "He 
stalked in, clothed in nightshirt, breeches, and dazed dignity." 
Scores of old friends called to congratulate me on my escape, 
when in fact the credit was Edward's ; but my recovery from 
the shock seemed slow. One night in my room I heard some 
lady, who was blessed with a voice, round, full, and sweet, 
singing songs of the war. I wrote and sent her this message 
by Edward : "Will the sweet singer whose voice has just now 
moved a sick old soldier to tears, kindly sing for him the 'Star- 
Spangled Banner' ?" She paused to read the request, and then, 
to my joy, the house was filled with the melody of that grand 
old national air. Still ill, my medicine-man looked wise and 
gave elaborate directions as to what I must and must not eat, 
and finally Edward loaded me into a sleeper and started me 
homeward over the C. & O. I tried it, but couldn't count ten 
to save me. The first connected thought to filter through my 
brain was the motto for a thousand years back of my Scottish 
clan, "Vincere vel mori' — liberally translated, "We conquer or 
die." Then calling the porter, up about Staunton. I had him 
take me into the diner. Here I ordered and absorbed everv- 



A Few Others Worth While 401 

thing on the menu from soup to toothpicks, went to bed, and 
slept until ten o'clock the next morning. My recovery there- 
after was rapid. 

In 1907 and the early part of 1908, much of my time was 
spent at the Riggs House in Washington on an Osage Indian 
case involving over a million and a half of dollars, and, oi 
course, Edward was always with me. Because I was there 
alone and had to win, for the all of my clients hung on the 
issue, I worked earlier and later than was good for me. Often 
Edward begged, coaxed, and even threatened that if I didn't 
stop work and go to bed, he would leave me to my fate ; and 
one morning at about two o'clock I recall now that he said : 
"No livin' man can stand it, suh ; why, pore as 1 am, you 
couldn't get me to wuk like that for all the money of all the 
Indians ; no suhee, not for all the dollars across the street there 
in the Treasury." Of course I promised, but said: "Edward, 
the exact truth is, you would not leave me now for all the 
money of earth.'' The poor boy turned his head aside, his chin 
quivered, he was crying ! He thought I was committing cer- 
tain suicide, and he came near being right, for on February 
12, 1908, came my breakdown from that work; but I won. In 
the drawing-room of a Pullman sleeper, Edward then brought 
me heme, and day and night remained in my room here and 
nursed and looked after me for over two weeks ; and when 
not watching my every symptom like a hawk, that boy was up 
in his room on the third floor praying for my recovery. Then 
the wide dififerences between youth and age came into evidence ; 
I no longer sprang back into place ; recovery was loni^ coming. 
But the climatic conditions found in Oklahoma, in the Ozark 
Mountains of Missouri, and down in New Mexico afiforded 
relief; and when Washington was at last revisited in Decem- 
ber, and again in this year, Edward's joy knew no bounds, for 
he saw his life-long friend was again himself. 



4Ci2 Recollections 

Thomas Adams Witten, Kansas City, Missouri: Born 
at the little town of Beckley, Raleigh County, West Virginia, 
already matie famous as the birthplace of "Ben Bolt"and "The 
Blue Alsatian Mountains," the earliest recollections of our 
Tom were enlivened by the less poetic rattle of musketry, for 
the big war was on, his father was a surgeon in the Confed- 
erate Army and there was much marching, and fighting too, 
in the '6o's, all about that town, by both Federal and Confe'l- 
erate troops. 

Just where or how this clear-headed man became a scholar 
and a lawyer are not now so material as are the facts that he is 
to-day recognized as being in the front rank in both scholarship 
and legal ability. For awhile he was the head of the State 
Normal School at Huntington, West Virginia, as a teacher, 
and commenced the practice of law at Trenton, Missouri, but 
for a quarter of a century now has hammered law and fact 
into courts and juries here at Kansas City with masterful* 
clearness, skill, earnestness, and success. 

In the meantime he has read much good stuff and thought 
a lot; has written many widely read monographs, the best of 
which, in my judgment, were his paper read before the Mis- 
souri Bar Association on "The Public Health" and his "Mun- 
kacsy's Christ on Calvary" before our Greenwood Club in 
1900. At rare intervals he has set his eye on a seat on the 
bench or in the halls of Congress in times past ; but not for 
long, and is now trying hard to live it down. Those who like 
to have him around, and that means everybody who knows 
him. try to keep him in the law line and have hopes of winning 
out; but despite them and his own better judgment, every now 
and then he will break into the political game or browse around 
in the literary field, because his fancy turns that way. 

In July, 1899, I submitted his case to Elbert Hubbard in 
a letter, true as gospel in all things, in this way: "Our mutual 



A Few Others Worth While 403 

friend, Tom Witten, as you know, sometimes mixes his law 
and poetry and literature in a most diabolical fashion, and in 
his own royal way came out to my house on Beacon Hill the 
other evening with a party of ladies. He at once proceeded 
to smoke my cigars, sing my old songs, and drink my old 
whisky, and then, while the ladies were at the piano singing— 
for they can sing, while Tom and I simply howl— in hot blood 
sat down and on the spur of the inspirational moment reeled oiT 
the following, dedicated as a toast to myself : 

'To THE Sage of Beacon Hill: A Toast. 

'Here 's to the Sage of Beacon Hill ! 
Here 's to his music and here 's to his quill ! 
For he writes like an angel, sings like a bird. 
And tells the best stories Bohemia has heard. 
Here 's to his pipe and here 's to his mug, 
And here's to the Bourbon that flows from his iuo-'' 

Now, to your superior judgment in matters of such grave 
concern, I submit this proposition : What should be the pen- 
alty—death, banishment or denial of his right to the contents 
of that jug?" 

Fra Elbertus at once answered, suggesting that I send 
Tom "on here to East Aurora for a few months and we will 
have him help Ali Baba." This in my reply I promised to do 
as soon as the weather permitted, and added : "Fur Kri saik, 
deal gently with Tom. He is \yorth saving." 

Witten's subsequent marriage, his travels in this country 
and in Europe since, together with his recognized ability as 
student, thinker, and lawyer, have of late kept him reasonably 
busy; but occasionally he still breaks forth in verse or book. 



I 



Appendix. 



Yielding again to importunities which I have never learneii 
to resist, I here reprint a few of the many things I have said 
in the past : 

Slavery, Egyptian and American, A Comparison ; MosES 
AND Lincoln, A Parallel. 

[Reprint from IT est cm Veteran, February, 1897.] 

A Tribute to Lincoln's Memory. 

Judge H. C. McDougal dehvered an address of excep- 
tional interest at the celebration of the eighty-eighth anni- 
versary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, held in Strope's Hall, 
corner of Ninth and Wyandotte streets, Kansas City, Mo., 
Friday night, February 12, 1897. Judge McDougal treated 
Lincoln from a new standpoint in many ways. He compared 
Egyptian and American slavery, and was particularly inter- 
esting as considering Moses the prototype of the great Eman- 
cipator. The address is given in full below : 

Mr. Chainnan Comrades, and friends: 

T am glad to see present to-night, honoring the day we 
celebrate, so many ladies. Every soldier recalls the fact that 
the love of mother, sister, wife, or sweetheart was the highest 
incentive to duty to country and flag, in field and on the march, 

(405) 



496 RECOI.LECTIONS 

and that their memory was such an inspiration as caused the 
weary, flagging step to quicken and the pulse to beat faster; 
and so it seems good to have them with us again to-night. 

I am glad, too, to see so many representative colored men 
here ; for if there be one day in the year when the colored peo- 
ple of America should cease from their labor and devote the 
entire day to actual thanksgiving and actual prayer, that day 
is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. 

It is pleasant also to see among the audience a goodly 
number of old Confederate soldiers. This is an object-lesson 
in patriotism. It shows to the world what soldiers have known 
for a generation — namely, that with soldiers the war closed 
at Appomatox and that since that day there has been peace 
between the Blue and Gray. Politicians alone have kept up 
sectional strife. Soldiers of both armies have echoed and 
re-echoed the immortal sentiment, "Let us have peace." I want 
to say to you ex-Confederates that if the king of terrors and 
his hosts should take form and shape so that soldiers miglit 
meet him in open field and strive for the mastery, then that 
the old Union soldiers of Missouri would join the old Con- 
federates, touch elbows and keep step with them and march 
down south of this city and do battle with the hosts of death, 
rescue from the valley of the shadow of death, where he is 
now making his last fight, and restore to family, friends, and 
country that gallant, chivalric, courageous, and courteous gen- 
tleman and soldier of the old school — glorious old Jo Shelby. 
Our prayers go up with yours, and we earnestly hope, as you 
do, that your old commander may yet be rescued from the 
jaws of death. 

I am not here, however, to discuss either of these three 
interesting subjects, but to direct your thought to a compari- 
son between Egyptian and American slavery and point out the 
parallel in the lives of Moses and Lincoln. The scene which 



& 



Moses and Lincoln 407 

relates to Egyptian slavery opens nearly two thousand years 
before Christ. 

Pharaoh had made Joseph ruler over all the land of 
Egypt; they had there passed through their seven years of 
plenty and were in their seven years of famine, "and the famine 
was over all the face of the earth" ; Jacob's other sons had been 
down into Egypt and bought corn of Joseph — when, at the 
invitation of Pharaoh, conveyed through Joseph, Jacob and 
his family went down to the land of Goshen in Egypt, "and 
all the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, 
were three score and ten." 

All went well until after the death of Jacob and of 
Joseph; "the children of Israel were fruitful and increased 
abundantly and multiplied and waxed exceeding mighty; and 
the land was filled with them. Now there arose up a new king 
over Egypt, which knew not Joseph." This "new king" at once 
commenced and vigorously prosecuted systematic efforts to 
oppress and decrease the numbers and powers of the Israelites, 
and their condition soon became nothing short of abject slav- 
ery. "And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in 
mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field; 
all their service, wherein they were made to serve, was with 
rigor." This oppression continued up to the time of Moses. 

"Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who 
dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years." The 
exact date of their exodus is uncertain, but it is probable that 
it began about fifteen hundred years before Christ. Notwith- 
standing Egyptian oppression, the Israelites became "as the 
stars of heaven for multitude," for the seventy who originally 
went there had increased to "about six hundred thousand on 
foot that were men, besides children," at the time Moses led 
them over into the wilderness. The first census taken in the 
wilderness shows that "from twenty years old and upwards, all 



408 Recollections 

that were able to go forth to war in Israel * * were six hun- 
dred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty." 
This did not include the Levites, who had charge of the Taber- 
nacle, and whose numbers aggregated over twenty-two thous- 
and males above one year old ; nor did it include the women. 
With all included, there must have been over two millions of 
the children of Israel that followed their great leader out of 
Egypt and into the wilderness. There "they did eat manna 
forty years, * * * until they came to the borders of the land 
of Canaan." Yet Moses says to them: "Thy raiment waxed 
not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell these forty years." 
But after centuries of slavery, and after their long so- 
journ of forty years in the wilderness, the children of Israel 
finally dwelt in safety in the promised land — the land flowing; 
with milk and honey. Not so with their great leader: meelc, 
humble, "slow of speech and of a slow tongue" he was, yet to 
me, "take him for all in all,'' Moses stands out as the most rich- 
ly endowed intellectual giant in all history, sacred and pro- 
fane. The characters of Julius Caesar and of Napoleon Bona- 
parte and of Ulysses S. Grant challenge one's highest admira- 
tion ; my own admiration, veneration, and love for the char- 
acters of Washington and Lincoln are boundless, yet to me it 
seems that there has not been so many-sided a man as Moses : 
a law-giver, a poet, a physician, a magician, a statesman ; a 
man of rare wisdom, sublime imagination, vast learning, splen- 
did courage and sagacity ; a leader of men, who knew, how to 
control and play upon the hearts of his people, and who was 
marvelously successful in his management of his two millions 
of unruly, ignorant, vicious, and superstitious ex-slaves — tlie 
world has never seen his like. Faithful in all things, the 
crowning glory of success was his. Yet he was not permitted 
to enter into the promised land, nor see nor feel nor taste the 
sweet fruit of his magnificent leadership of more than forty 



Moses and Lincoi^n 409 

years. In the hour of his triumph he went up into the "moun- 
tain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah" ; there the Lord shewed 
him all the land of Canaan — valley and plain, mountain and 
palm tree, even unto the utmost sea — and there, alone with 
God and the mountain, and pointing out all the promised land, 
the Lord whom he had always obeyed thus said unto Moses : 
"I have cau'^ed thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt 
not go over thither." "So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died 
there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. 
And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab over 
against Bethpeor, but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto 
this day." 

"And had he not high honor? 

The hillside for his pall, 
To lie in state while angels wait, 

With stars for tapers tall ; 
And the dark rock pines, like tossing plumes, 

Over his bier to wave ; 
And God's own hand, in that lonely land, 

To lay him in the grave." 

"And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he 
died; his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. * * * 
And there arose not a prophet since in, Israel like unto Moses, 
whom the Lord knew face to face." 

I know not in all history a death and burial so pathetic 
as this, and to me there has been the death of but one great 
and heroic leader that equals in pathos the death of IVToses. 

Egyptian and American Slav^ery Compared. 

In 1619 a Dutch ship landed at Jamestown, in Virginia, 
twenty negro slaves. This was the beginning of negro slavery 



410 Recollections 

on American soil. Other importations followed, and the slave 
trade soon became more profitable than any other. This trade 
was prohibited by law as early as 1808, and in 1820 Congress 
enacted a law declaring it piracy ; but so enormous were the 
profits that the importation of negro slaves did not cease until 
the outbreak of our Civil War, and under this act of Congress 
there was never but a single conviction and execution — that 
of Gordon in November, 1861. 

The American slave-owner did not demand that his 
slaves make "bricks without straw" ; nor yet that among them 
the man-child be killed at his birth, as did his predecessor, the 
Egyptian taskmaster; but, on the contrary, self-interest, if not 
sentiment, led, in the main, to the fair and humane treatment 
of American slaves, so that their condition was infinitely above 
and far better, and their tasks and burdens less galling, than 
those of the slaves of Egypt. Still, America held her bond- 
men as had Egypt, and lier slaves longed for freedom as did 
the Israelites of old. 

Like their predecessors of that far-away period, Ameri- 
can slaves, by imi)ortation and by natural increase, "multiplied 
and waxed very mighty" in numbers ; for, in the two hundred 
and thirty-six years which intervened between 1619 and 1865, 
their numbers had increased from the twenty landed at James- 
town to more than four millions. 

But at last, in the fullness of time and providence of 
God, the hour was at hand when the bondmen in that rich 
land watered by the Nile should be free, as afterwards it came 
when the bondmen in that richer land watered by the Missis- 
sippi should be free. For the deliverance of the one, the Lord 
God — the beginning and the end of human justice — raised up 
Moses. For the deliverance of the other, the same God, three 
thousand years later, raised up Abraham Lincoln. 



Moses and Lincoi.n 411 

It is true that in liberating America's bondmen our 
Southland was sorely scourged. Hundreds of thousands of 
her bravest and best sons gave up their lives for a cause which 
from infancy they had been taught to believe, and did believe, 
was right. Thousands of her homes went to ashes in the red 
fires of war ; yet the scourges of the South were as nothing 
in comparison with those ol old Egypt. For there, before 
Pharaoh would consent that the bond should go free, the Lord 
turned into blood all the waters of Egypt ; was compelled to, 
and did, send the plagues of frogs, of lice, of flies, and of mur- 
rain of beasts, and of boils and blains, of hail, locusts, and 
darkness ; and finally caused to be slain, throughout all the land, 
the first-born of both man and beast so that "there was a great 
cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not 
one dead." More than this, when the bondmen of Egypt were 
on their way to the promised land, they w^ro pursued by 
Pharaoh and his hosts ; Moses parted the waters, he and) his 
followers passed over dry shod ; but when the Egyptians got 
well into the sea, "the waters returned, and covered their 
chariots and their horsemen and all the host of Pharaoh that 
came into the sea after them ; and there remained not so much 
as one of them, * * * and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon 
the sea-shore." 

Our Southland, thank heaven, neither saw nor felt any 
of these scourges, nor was the remnant of that gallant band 
of American soldiers that forever grounded arms and furled 
flag at Appomatox swallowed up and lost in a waste of waters. 
Nor were American slaves, after their liberation, forced to 
wander in a wilderness for forty long, dreary years ; nor had 
they cause to murmur and weep and say, as did the bondmen 
of Egypt, "Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the 
fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely : the cucumbers, and the 



412 Recollections 

melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic ; but now 
our suul is dried away." 

. On the contrary, the Southland soldier returned in peace 
to his home, taking his horses — "they will need them for the 
spring plowing," said our great-hearted Grant. The American 
slave, too, remained in the rich Egypt in which he was born — 
tlic soft, sensuous, flower-laden, melon-producing land of 
Dixie — where, at first in the service of his old master, and 
later for himself, he continued to hoe the cotton, the corn, and 
the cane, until raised to the full dignity of American citizen- 
ship in the land of his birth. There most of them remam, even 
unto this day. Loyal to old master and old "missus" in the 
chains of slavery and in freedom, in war and in peace, — for be 
it remembered to their everlasting honor, that no negro slave 
of America ever betrayed the trust or offered personal violence 
to master or mistress — to me, born and reared among them as 
1 was, they will ever be remembered as the kindest and the 
most faithful of the creatures of God. In peace and harmony 
they dwell to-day among those who but a third of a century 
ago owned their bodies — held them as mere chattels. 

Lincoln the Liberator. 

To whom are the American slaves of a generation ago 
indebted for their freedom? First, to that tenderest, ablest, 
and best of American statesmen — Abraham Lincoln ; next, to 
the great commanders — Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, 
Logan, and Blair, and a host of other officers ; but most of all 
to the boys who wore the blue — who went down into their 
land of Egypt to save the Union ; who for four long year;;, 
through summer's heat and winter's snow, over mountain and 
plain, through cotton-field and cane-brake, followed the flag 
and fought for the right. The bones of a majority of these 
boys of a third of a century ago are now mouldering back to 



Moses and Lincoln 413 

dust again in the land they saved — "theirs the cross, ours the 
crown." Remember that under Lincohi these boys had their 
"wilderness" ; that when they returned to "God's country" they 
not only brought back America's Ark of the Covenant, the 
Constitution, with every line and word in its old place and in 
full force and effect; from that "abomination of desolation," 
the chaos of secession, rescued and brought back with them 
every one of the eleven stars that had fallen from the field of 
blue in their country's flag and restored each star to its old 
place, where, firm as a fixed star in heaven, each again glit- 
tered to the name of a redeemed and restored State in the 
American Union ; but brought back with them and proudly 
threw upon the altar of their beloved country the shackles of 
four millions of human beings. 

When that grand old army that had saved the Union 
and liberated Aro«rica's bondmen, " like a grand, majestic sea," 
swept up from tne Southland and through the nation's capital 
on that memorable review of May, 1865, beneath each blouse 
of blue beat a heart filled with conflicting emotions of joy and 
sorrow : Joy because the Union was saved, the flow of Amer- 
ican blood had ceased, the slaves were free, and "home, sweet 
home" was near at hand ; sorrow because of comrades who 
slept the sleep that knows no waking in that soft clime beneath 
Southern skies, and sorrow that the hour of parting with com- 
panions in arms had come. Within every heart, too, was a 
feeling of profound respect for the courage and valor of those 
who had fought so long and so well for "the lost cause." On 
an hundred battle-fields the boys in gray had demonstrated the 
highest qualities of American soldiers, to meet and defeat 
whom had been both honorable and glorious. Four years be- 
fore, to the sound of bugh. fife, and drum, m uniforms bright, 
with plumes and banners flying, and hearts beating with hope 
and courage high, the boys in gray had proudly marched away 



414 Recollections 

from homes filled with music and song and perfume of flowers ; 
now, in the unutterable sadness, sorrow, and humiliation of 
defeat, they were tramping their weary way back to those 
homes in the land of pine and palm tree, cotton and cane, 
where the plantation song of the darky and the tumming of 
the old banjo now were hushed and the mournful note of the 
whip-poor-will and the sad, sweet tones of the mocking-bird 
made the only music, and even this to them sounded like the 
Dead March in Saul. What now to them were the voices 
of singing men and of singing women and of singing birds, 
for the ringing voices of Jeb Stuart, Albert Sidney Johnston, 
and Stonewall Jackson were hushed in death ; nevermore would 
they hear the grave, dignified command of their great chief- 
tain, Robert E. Lee; the cause for which they had endured so 
much was lost. For them the days went by "like a shadow 
o'er the heart," and what lay before them under the new order 
of things no man dared to guess. The boys who in that grand 
review still kept step to the majestic music of the Union 
thought of all this — the generous Blue forgave the errors of, 
and felt pity for the vanquished Gray — he was a foe no longer, 
but an American citizen and in the land of his fathers. 

But above all, in that grand review every eye was filled 
with unshed tears, every heart bowed down, because of the 
untimely- death of him to whose call they had responded : 
"We're coming. Father Abraham, three hundred thousand 
more." Lincoln was not there to receive and welcome and re- 
view the conquering heroes whose every movement by day and 
by night, w^ith a father's loving tenderness, he had so anxious- 
ly watched for four long years. 

As the bondmen of Egypt after their liberation often 
needed the wise head and generous heart of Moses, so the 
bondmen of America sorely needed the wise head and great 
heart of their Emancipator; the boys in blue and the boys in 



Moses and Lincoi^n 415 

gray, for their protection against the wiles of scheming poHti- 
cians North and South, also needed Lincoln ; yet this boon was 
denied them ; for the one man who could and no doubt would 
have proven a blessing and a benediction to bondmen, Blue 
and Gray alike, had been called to his reward. And as in the 
olden time "the children of Israel wept for Moses in the land 
of Moab," so the newly made freedmsn, as well as the soldiers 
of both armies, mourned and wept for Lincoln. 

Al0SI;S AND LiNCOLN — ThE PARALLEL. 

Some of those who should have been most loyal, earnest, 
and zealous in their support of ]\Ioses often murmured, com- 
plained, and even revolted against the great Law-giver. So 
with Lincoln. "In that fierce light which beats upon a throne/' 
the central figure of the war — the strongest and the noblest 
man whose shadow the sweet sunshine of heaven ever cast 
upon Mother Earth — stood amid a shower of envious shafts, 
heard the cruel criticism and the curses of enemies North and 
South, at home and abroad, yet through it all remained he, 
like a god of old. calm, immoved, and immovable. 

"I saw a pine in Italy 
That cast its shadow athwart a cataract. 
The pine stood firm, 
The cataract shook tlie shadow." 

Our war was a mighty cataract poured out of heaven in 
answer to the human cry for justice and freedom, its waters 
crimsoned with a nation's blood of atonement ; the colossa! 
shadow of Lincoln was cast athwart its every part; in public 
opinion he sometimes seemed to waver, yet now we know that 
however vacillating others, through all its four years of appall- 
ing seethe and roar and crash, Lincoln himself swerved neither 



416 Recollections - 

to the right nor the left, but, Hke the poet's pine, always stood 
firm. He knew what he was doing and why. His enemies did 
not know, could not understand. The only American who, 
upon the instant, comprehended every proposition relating to 
war and freedom, he was long rev iled for his silence and inac- 
tion ; yet when, at the right moment, through his immortal 
Emancipation Proclamation, he did speak, the world heard ; 
and no words spoken in all history have proven so potential 
for good, or have so calmed the waters of discontent, since 
upon the troubled Sea of Galilee the Master stood forth and 
said : "Peace, be still." Peace, the redeemed and restored 
Union and the freedom of American bondmen were from that 
moment assured. Then, and not till then, did the world fully 
reah'ze that at the helm of our ship of state, rocked and tossed 
as it was upon the crimson sea of civil war, there stood an 
earnest, sad-faced man, in leadership the peer of Moses and 
in goodness and mercy and justice almost the equal of Jesus 
of Nazareth. 

Like Moses, Lincoln was permitted to view the promised 
land. Lee had surrendered, the war was nearing its close; 
with his prophetic eye he saw in the near future the old flag 
floating free from sea to sea ; saw the Union saved and re- 
stored ; saw the shackles of every American slave lying broken 
at his feet ; but the splendid army of Johnston and the army 
of the Southwest were still in the field ; "the bonny blue flag" 
was still borne aloft, and still in defiance kissed soft, balmy 
breezes under Southern skies. Hence, like Moses. Lincoln 
was not permitted to set foot in that land of perfect freedom 
for which his sad soul yearned. For each it was only a lit- 
tle way off — just across the river — the Jordan for Moses and 
the Potomac for Lincoln; yet the hand of God touched the 
one, the hand of a madman the other, and the two great Eman- 
cipators stood face to face in the presence of the God of Abra- 



Moses and Lincoi^n 417 

ham, Isaac, and Jacob — the same God that looked down with 
pity upc.n bondmen of the Nile and the Mississippi and said; 
"They shall be free." 

As under that high resolve, with Moses for leader and 
"the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night" for 
guide, the bondmen of Egypt at last emerged from their dark- 
ness into the light of freedom ; so with Lincoln for leader and 
the starry banner of the Union for guide, the long night of 
slavery at last gave way to freedom's light, and, bewildered 
with joyous wonder, the bondmen of America, in the land 
where they had been but things, stood upon their feet as men. 
Moses was born of obscure parentage and in poverty; 
so was Lincoln. Yet, in his own country and among his own 
people, each attained the highest station, stood alone upon the 
very dome of dread Fame's temple, a most unselfish, uncon- 
scious, and unambitious giant, without a rival and without a 
peer 

When Moses died, "his eye was not dim, nor his natural 
force abated," and the same was true of Lincoln. From the 
standpoint of the human, each seems to have been called when 
most needed — when on the very threshold of a new, useful, 
and even a more glorious career. Yet who knows? 

Another strikingly suggestive parallel, true alike in the 
land of Canaan and in America, in Holy Writ finds expression 
in these words : "And there arose not a prophet since in 
L-rael like unto Moses." 

"The death of Moses was pathetic ; that of Lincoln, tragic ; 
and yet there was an indescribable pathos in the death of Lin- 
coln that is closely associated with that of the death of his 
great prototype : In sight of the promised land, yet not per- 
mitted to enter. 

How dififerent their burials ! With his own hands and 
all alone, God himself buried Moses "in a vallev in the land 



k 



418 Recollections 

of Moab, over against Bethpeor ; but no man knoweth of his 
sepulchre unto this day." Not so with Lincoln: A grateful 
nation of freemen, all in tears, tenderly bore his body from the 
Capital to his old home on the broad prairies of Illinois, and 
with loving hands there laid away the tall form of that plain, 
sad, unassuming patriot, who in saving the Union brouglit 
freedom to America's bondmen. There he rests in the majescy 
of eternal repose. His works and his example live. Ami 
while time lasts, lovers of liberty and freedom and justice from 
every land and clime, aye, even nations and peoples yet un- 
born, will make pilgrimages to that tomb, and standing there 
with uncovered heads, with thoughts too deep for either words 
or tears, will silently and reverently return thanks to the God 
of bond and free for his gift of Abraham Lincoln. 



Looking Backward — Yuletide, 1902. 
[A Purel)- Personal Question — No Answer.] 

Looking backvv-ard, on this Christmas eve, 1902, over fifty- 
eight years of a life blending all classes of human experience — 
sunshine and shadow, joy and sorrow, success and failure, 
hope and despair, health and sickness, life and death, calm and 
storm, peace and war, victory and defeat, laughter and tears, 
song and sob — I see to-night that my life has been made up of 
strange inconsistencies — sometimes the reckless, rollicking, 
ha[)py-go-;ucky, devil-may-care vagabond — sometimes the dig- 
nified, thoughtful, useful, and courteous gentleman — a pagan 
and an agnostic there, deeply religious here — a student, thinker, 
and worker there, an idle, dreaming loafer here — farmer, sol- 
dier, lawyer, judge there, plain citizen here — fighting there, 
yielding here — sighing there, smiling here — talking there, si- 
lent here — winning there, losing here — wise there, foolish here 
— doing good to a friend there, cursing an enemy here — touch- 






Looking Ijackward 419 

ing by times the heights and the depths of human life, glad 
here, and there — never wholly good nor bad — floating on the 
surface of occasion and trusting to the sublimity of luck there, 
manfully and earnestly battling with the realities of life and 
fate and attaining that which the world calls success, honor, 
and even glory here — bearing defeat as becomes a man there, 
not too joyous over success here — blest with the love and ten- 
derness and thoughtful kindness and devotion of wife, chil- 
dren, and friends there, encountering, yet ignoring, the scorn 
of others here — loved of women and respected of men there, 
hated by the parvenu, Pharisee, and snob here — cherishing that 
wiiich is good there, despising, yet doing, that which is bad 
here' — all things to all men there, known to and understood 
by few here — in the Valley of the Shadow of Death there, on 
the mountain-top of health and strength and vigor here — the 
best I can now see in it all is that in all these years I have scat- 
tered rays of sunshine whenever and wherever I could, and 
heve never knowingly wronged one single human being. Thus 
have I lived, moved, and had my being among my fellows on 
this earth for more than half a century. 

The questions now are: Has it all paid? Is such a life 
worth the living:? 



When I quit last night — for it is now Christmas morning 
— and attempted to formulate my answer to these questions, 
they would not come. So they remain now unanswered. 



And now it is 4 p m. on Saturday, December 27, 1902, and 
the answers to these questions have not yet come to me. May- 
be they will not come until I shall rest beneath the shade on 
the other side of the River. 

True, T might answer either or both of these questions 
with a simple "Yes" or "No," or I might go into details and 



420 Recollections 

attempt to give reason for the faith that is in me — if any I 
have — upon either the one theory or the other; but upon ma- 
ture reflection I am now constrained to beheve that the game 
is not worth the candle. 

In a book or paper called "At the Article of Death" the 
author, whoever he or she may have bc^n, says of some one, 
but whom I do not now recall, something like this : "He 
passed his days with the thought of his own end fixed like a 
bull's-eye on the target of his meditations." Now this sort 
of thing, if I know what it all means — which is in doubt — has 
been the least of my trouble, for I have never seriously medi- 
tated on my own end, nor when it will come, nor how, nor 
where ; nor yet upon what is to become of the alleged immor- 
tal part of me, nor how nor where the cold clay shall be laid 
away. WHAT 'S THE USE? 

While I have lived my own life in my own way, yet I have 
always had before me the theory — and have practiced it in my 
way — that it is the duty of the human to "love all, trust a few, 
do wrong to none." And so this evening, when the year 1902 
is Hearing its close — the year that has brought me so near the 
land where our dreams come true that I could almost see the 
flowers, the grasses, the palms that grow in endless spring 
there — and when returning health and strength and vigor give 
me reasons to believe that I am back on this earth to remain 
for many a long year, I feel that I may well hope that when 
the end does come — be it sooner or later — I shall have so lived 
that friends will look down on my cold, dead, dumb face anff 
say of me as friends said of John McElrod : 

"Here lies poor Johnny McElrod. 
Have mercy on him, gracious God, 
As be would you if he were God 
And vou were Tohnny McElrod '' 



i 



Leopard Memorial Address 421 

To me it seems that this sentiment of broad charity is 
good enough for the epitaph of any man who has loved his 
fellows. And so, with love all around, I say good-night, but 
not good-bye, to all. 

John Adams Leopard, Lawyer — Memorial Address, 1906. 
Delivered before the Missouri Bar Association. 

fRei^rint from 24 Mo. Bar Ass'n Report, p. 188.] 
Mr. President: 

The young Missouri lawyer of to-day, in his elegantly 
appointed office, with his splendid library, his clerks, stenog- 
raphers, printed records, briefs, etc., has heard or read that 
away back in the early history of the State there was a time 
when all these aids to the successful practice of the profession 
were absolutely unknown; and can neither understand nor 
appreciate how the early-day lawyer with a few text-books in 
his saddle-bags, "riding the circuit" from county to county 
with the Judge, writing out in longhand all his own pleadings, 
instructions, and bills of exceptions, to say nothing of con- 
tracts, bonds, deeds, and mortgages, could try and argue causes 
with either intelligence, skill, ability, or success. 

His law office was generally a single room on the ground 
floor, located not far from the court-house ; his law student or 
junior partner carried in the wood and water and swept out ; 
neither carpet nor rug ever desecrated the floor ; the office was 
heated from an open fireplace or a box stove, and there was 
always in evidence, as well as use, the spit-box filled with saw- 
dust ; while the remaining contents of his office were not un- 
like the library and furniture of a great Illinois lawyer of 
that period, who in giving in his assessment list is said (quot- 
mg from memory) to have written with his own hand the fol- 
lowing description of his office property: 



422 Recollectioms 

"i set book-shelves and law-books, worth, say $12.50 

I set pigeonholes, worth, say i.oo 

I tabic, slightly damaged, worth, say 2.50 

1 stove, one hinge off, two legs ditto, worth, say.. 1.50 

2 chairs — bottom out of one, worth, say i.oo 

I stool, one leg gone, worth, say 25 

Total $17-50 

"There i^ also a rat-hole in the corner. This last will bear 
looking into." 

That pioneer lawyer of Illinois was Abraham Lincoln. 
Except for a railroad, five miles long, running from 
Richmond in Ray County down to the Missouri River oppo- 
site Lexington, wath sawed oak rails, hewed oak cross-ties and 
operated by horse-power, there was not, until late in the year 
1852, a single mile of railroad, nor a telegraph line in Mis- 
sotiri ; bridges and ferries were few and far between and State 
roads rare; the lawyer then always "rode the circuit" on 
horseback over prairie trails, through unconquered forests, 
stopping overnight in the humble cabin of the settler; was 
often compelled to swim rivers and creeks in order to be pres- 
ent at the "opening of court" in the next county, and was 
always obliged to make his trips to and from the Supreme 
Court at Jefferson City on horseback or steamboat, because 
these were then the only means of travel. With these his- 
torical facts in mind, the lawyer of the present wonders how 
his early-day predecessor could endure the hardships of 
"practice on the circuit" or find profit or pleasure in it. 

Yet the pioneer lawyer loved and enjoyed the life he 
lived; gloried in the power and influence of his profession; 
and was never so happy as when, either on the road or in the 
coTTrt-room by day or at the tavern by night, he was in the 
thick of the fight with his brethren of the Bar. 



Leopard Memorial Address 423 

He was past master in the science of pleading — which 
my Lord Coke happily characterized as "the heartstring of 
the common law"; an adept in the rules of evidence, of prac- 
tice and of equity; pre-eminent in the ability to think on his 
feet, and from the ancient and honored principles of the com- 
mon law reasoned with a logical force, power, and skill that is 
absolutely unknown to the "case" and "precedent" lawyer of 
to-day. The question then was : What legal principle con- 
trols? Now it is: Have you a case in point? The hope and 
aspiration of the lawyer then was professional fame, honor; 
now it is money — commercialism. These facts are here re- 
called neither to glorify the lawyer of the past, nor to dis- 
parage the lawyer of the present ; but rather to emphasize a 
few of the many marked changes in the practice, wrought by 
the onward march of the past half-century. 

The lawyer of that far-away day not only was and did all 
the things mentioned, but, like a patriot-soldier, standing for 
the enforcement of law and order on the firing-line of our 
Western civilization, he was the most powerful factor in 
moulding, guiding, and controlling public thought and action 
in morals and politics, as well as in law and religion. 

"There were giants in the earth in those days," at the 
Missouri Bar ; men who knew Coke upon Littleton, Black- 
stone and Kent, Chitty and Starkie, from lid to lid ; and 
among our many accomplished lawyers of to-day, there are 
few, if any, who more clearly or ably present questions of 
law, or make to court or jury more convincing arguments on 
law or fact, than did the early lawyers of this State. 

From the fact that in the thirty-one years which inter- 
vened from the organization of the State in 1821 to 1852, but 
fourteen volumes of Missouri Reports were issued, it is ap- 



424 Recollections 

parent that the finding of court or jury then ended the great 
majority of cases; that appeals and writs of error were few; 
and from a glance through our early reports it seems prob- 
able that more cases went to the Supreme Court from St. 
Louis than from all other parts of the State. In 1852, Gam- 
ble, Scott, and Ryland were on the Bench; no rule then, or 
for many years thereafter, required printed records or briefs; 
these were seldom seen, arguments were oral, and the opin- 
ions, delivered in the proper handwriting of the judges, 
were models of legal learning, logic, and brevity, in compari- 
son with which the loosely dictated, long drawn out, principle- 
ignoring, and pleading, proof, and precedent-padded opinions 
of to-day suggest tears of regret for judicial glory departed. 
For the elaborate, yet obscure and illogical dissertations of 
the present, vast libraries and expert stenographers may share 
the blame with the overcrowded docket, yet certain it is that 
a return to the short, clear, concise opinions of half a century 
ago would be a godsend to Bench, Bar, and people. 

Among the leaders of the Bar of North Missouri fifty- 
four years ago (and T confine myself to those who then lived 
north of the Missouri River, for the reason that the then lead- 
ers south of the river will be named by brother William Aull, 
of Lexington, in his address upon the Rylands) were such 
able, earnest, learned, and distinguished lawyers as Prince L. 
iludgins, of Andrew County; Charles H. Hardin, of Audrain; 
John M. Gordon, Odon Guitar, and James S. Rollins, of 
Boone; Jonathan M. Bassett, James Craig, James B. Garden- 
hire, Willard P. Hall, Sr., Ben Loan, Robert M. Stewart, 
Henry M. Vories, and Silas Woodson, of Buchanan; Charles 
J. Hughes, of Caldwell; Joseph K. Sheley, and Thomas An- 
sell, of Callaway; Robert D. Ray, of Carroll ; Casper W. Bell, 



Leopard Memorial Address 425 

John Chappell Crawley, Andy S. Harris, and Benjamin F. 
Stringfellow, of Chariton; Noah F. Givens, of Clark; 
Alexander W. Doniplian, James H. Moss, and Henry L. 
Routt, of Clay; David R. Atchison, James H. Birch, and 
Bela M. Hughes, of Clinton; James McFerran and Sam- 
uel A. Richardson, of Daviess ; George W. Lewis, of 
Gentry; John C. GrifTin, Stephen Peery, John H. Shank- 
lin, and Jacob T. Tindall, of Grundy; Wm. G. Lewis, 
of Ilarrison; John l». Clark. Jo Davis, John W. Hen- 
ry, AbieJ Leonard, Robert T. Prewitt, and Thomas Shackle- 
ford, of Howard ; James Ellison, Sr., James S. Greene, 
James J. Lindley, and David Wagner, of Lewis; James A. 
Clark and Jacob Smith, of Linn; Luther T. Collier, William 
C. Samuel, and William Y. Slack, of Livingston ; Thomas L. 
Anderson, John D. S. Dryden. William P. Harrison, Alfred 
W. Lamb, Gilchrist Porter, and John T. Redd, of Marion; 
Abner Gilstrap, of Macon; James O. Broadhead, Thomas J. 
C. Fagg, and John B. Henderson, of Pike ; James H. Baldwin, 
James N. Burnes, Joseph E. Merryman, Elijah Hise Norton, 
Amos Reese, and John Wilson, of Platte; George H. Burck- 
hardt and William A. Hall, of Randolph; Aaron H. Conrow, 
George W. Dunn, Ephraim B. Ewing, Christopher T. Garner, 
Austin A. King, and Mordecai Oliver, of Ray; and Wesley 
Halliburton, Robert B. Morrison, and Marshall B. Witter, of 
Sullivan County. 

Save and except Guitar of Boone, Crawley of Chariton, 
Collier and Samuel of Livingston, Fagg and Henderson of 
Pike, Norton of Platte, and Shackleford of Howard, all of 
these have passed away — some of them many, many years 
ago. Their names are and will be preserved in our reports 
of the great cases of their time ; their personal characteristics 



426 Recollections 

and achievements are still sweet in the memory of a few of 

the older members of the Bar; but their glory, grown obscure 
in the mysterious flight of the years, is now fading away like 
morning mists from the mountain top. Yet from the personal 
reminiscences of these, great ones, a gifted writer could pro- 
duce a volume that in intense interest would rival the famous 
\egal classic, "Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi." 
What a theme for a present-day Baldwin ! 

In the spring of 1852 a graceful and accomplished youth 
of twenty-four appeared among this galaxy of lawyers, un- 
heralded, and entered the lists. Gallant as a knight of old, 
a Chesterfield in deportment and civility, the lawyers already 
in the field found in this brilliant young stranger a foeman 
worthy of their steel, for in the twenty years he "rode the cir- 
cuit" with them he proved himself the peer of the strongest 
and the best. 

His name was John Adams Leopard. A Virginian by 
birth, a graduate of Princeton, he had read law in the office 
of Judge Fred A. Schley, at Frederick, Maryland ; had for 
two years been a member of the Bar and practiced in the 
courts of that State, and was even then a well-equipped law- 
yer ; a gentleman by blood, instinct, and habit; genial and 
gentle, brave and chivalric, of superb finish and scholarship, 
and endowed witii rare powers as an eloquent, persuasive 
speaker before courts, juries, and people. He at once opened 
an office at Gallatin in Daviess County, practiced in the courts 
of the Grand River country for two decades, and then retired 
to the seclusion of his farm not far from the town. Honored, 
beloved, and distinguished above his fellows, with every prob 
pect of wider usefulness and growing fame before him, he 
voluntarily dropped out of the ranks to rest and read and 



Leopard Memorial Address 427 

think and sleep and dream in the quiet hush of the wayside. 
The column marched on ! That was only a generation ago, 
yet it is doubted if the younger members of this Association 
ever heard even the mention of his name. Such is the fame 
of the lawyer! 

Coming West at tiie close of the Civil War, casting my 
CAvn frail bark upon the troubled yet glorious sea of the law 
at Gallatin, during the many years of my residence there I 
enjoyed the personal acquaintance and often met and walked 
and talked with more than half of the rugged, stalwart old- 
time lav;yers wliom I have named. Proud of that personal 
and professional association, honoring their memory to-day, 
it is no reflection upon any one of them to say that forty 
years ago John A. Leopard was the ripest scholar, the widest, 
deepest, and best read member of the North Missouri Bar. 
His diction, whether in private talk or public speech, was al- 
ways couched in strongest and clearest English, while his iron 
logic in its irresistible force and power was like unto that of 
John C. Calhoun. Then there was a musically rhythmic ring 
and swing to his lofty eloquence and pathos, his classical and 
poetical references, that charmed every thoughtful listener. 

With the ambition common to men of his commanding 
genius. Leopard might have had, and could have filled with 
honor to himself, any office, political or judicial, within the 
gift of the people. But he was a Southern gentleman of the 
old school, gave no thought to fame or fortune, and preferring 
his books and his leisure to the limelight and the glory of pub- 
lic position and riches, he never souglit either place, or power, 
or gold. He read much and thought more; and in his retire- 
ment became a walking, living, brentliing encyclopedia of the 
world's history, philosophy, religion, poetry, music, arts, and 



428 Recollections 

sciences, and this, with his broad charity and charming per- 
sonality, made him one of the most ii ^sting and instructive 
men of his time. 

His heart and his manners were as simple and unaffected 
as those of a little child, yet he was a most unconscious and 
unambitious intellectual giant, whose like seldom comes to 
gladden the soul and brighten the pathway of a friend, or 
elevate the community in which he lives. 

Since first I listened entranced to the music of his voice, 
I have heard many able lawyers, in many courts, but have al- 
ways believed that the most pleasing, impressive, and instruct- 
ive law argument to which I ever listened was one made by 
Leopard in a land case before Judge Robert L. Dodge, then 
presiding in the old common pleas court at Gallatin, away 
bade in 1869. The case involved the doctrine of that dryest 
of all dry legal questions: "Covenants running with the land." 
Speaking without note or law-book, quoting from memory, 
citing volume and page, tracing the history, development, and 
philosophy of that doctrine from the learning of the ages, with 
apt illdsrrcitions showing the application of the rules of law 
to the facts in proof, he made it all as clear and as plain as 
tlie noonday sun. Just admitted to the bar, his argument was 
to me v. marvel of learning and of logic. Yet it demonstrated 
the truth of this proposition, valuable to me in later years: 
That tlie law is not a deep, dark, mysterious science, but, on 
the contrary, that its most complex question may be made 
definite, certain, and luminous by patient research, study, 
thought, reflection, and logical analysis. 

The last public address I heard Leopard deliver was on 
the Fourth of July. 1871, in front of the old court-house at 
Gallatin. The bitterness of the Civil War still rankled in 



Leopard Memorial Address 429 

the hearts of the people ; his own heart had gone out in sym- 
pathy to kindred and friends in his native Southland, yet 
loving the Union, the Constitution, and the old Flag, he had 
not raised hand or voice against either during the four-years 
struggle. Taking for his text the two lofty sentiments at that 
day on the lip of every one, "Love is stronger than hate" 
(the slogan of the successful party in the State campaign of 
1870), and that sublime invocation, "Let us have peace," then 
recently penned by General Grant — he delivered a speech that 
for majestic patriotism, fervid and forceful oratory, I have 
never heard excelled. His strong, ringing powerful appeal 
for peace, good-will, and good citizenship so touched the heart 
and brain of all, that for it each hearer, when he closed, knew 
he was a better citizen, a more patriotic American. 

Soon after this he retired from the activities of life, quit 
the town, went out to his farm, and there amid the quiet of 
home and family, the books and the magazines, the woods, the 
flowers and the birds he loved so well, like the sage and phil- 
osopher that he was, he calmly and fearlessly awaited the 
closing scene. 

On the 31st day of July, 1905, at the age of seventy- 
seven yea'rs, this venerable lawyer, gifted orator, scholar, 
dreamer, patriot, and friend, unmoved and at peace with God 
and man, felt the touch of the gathering mists of death as he 
lay in that loved country home, surrounded by wife, children, 
and friends. He saw not their tears, heard not their sobs; 
for the lights were going out, the dream ending, and his dy- 
ing eyes had caught a glimpse of the grasses, the flowers, the 
cooling shade, and the glories of the land beyond the River; 
the soft summer air, filled with song of bird and hum of bee, 
laden with perfume of roses, pinks, and new-mown hay, 
floated in through the open window, bringing balm of heal- 



430 Recollections 

ing and of rest— forgetfulness— sleep— then "that golden key- 
that opes the palace of eternity " was gently turned and the 
great soul of John A. Leopard passed within. 

Historical Sketch— Kansas City, Mo., 1909. 

Address before Missouri Historical Society. 

[Reprint from 4 Mo. Historical Review, page i ; also 
from II Kan. Hist. CoU'n. page 581.] 

Beginning: "In the beginning God created the heaven 
and the earth." Science often attempts to fix this at some 
particular period, but as no one knows certainly, this im- 
perfect sketch of the history of Kansas City, Missouri, com- 
mences just where the Book does — "in the beginning." 

Indians : From the Creator of the universe, this part of 
the western hemisphere must have passed to the original 
proprietor of our soil — the Indian. For when the white man 
here first set his foot, at the dawn of our known history, the 
copper-colored Indian was here with his squaw, his papoose, 
and his pony, and in the actual, open, and undisputed posses- 
sion and control of all that country which is now known as 
North America. 

1492: The earliest successful European discoverer, ex- 
plorer, and adventurer of this continent was Christopher Co- 
lumbus, of Spain, in 1492. After his party, there came hither 
first his many Spanish successors, then the subjects of sunny 
France, and still later the English. 

1540: It is more than probable, however, that the fol- 
lowers of the great Coronado were the first white visitors to 
this part of the country, and the time about 1541- 

The historical facts relating to this ill-fated expedition 



p.' 
HiSToKJCAL Sketch 431 

in brief are: That, following earlier reports which,.had al- 
ready come to him, Charles V. of Spain, and his Viceroy in 
Mexico (New Spain), directed Coronado to explore and sub- 
due for the Spanish Crown the city of Quivira and the 
seven cities of Cibola (Bufifalo), without knowledge as to 
the precise location of either; that Castenada, who accom- 
panie^d the expedition as its historian, twenty years later 
wrote out his story thereof for the King, and from his writ- 
ings, as well as from many subsequent publications, the world 
to-day has all its information as to the success and failure of 
that undertaking; that Coronado first organized his forces at 
Compostella, Guadalajara, in Old Mexico, in February, 1540, 
but made his actual start from Culiacan, on the Pacific Ocean, 
in April of that year, with 350 Spanish cavaliers and 800 In- 
dian guides ; that during his two-years quest, either the entire 
or detachments of this expedition wandered onward east and 
north through (now) Old Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico, 
Colorado, and into the northeastern portion of Kansas, en- 
countering eji route and with strong arm subduing many re- 
calcitrant Indian towns and villages, and treating with others 
who were more friendly ; but that finally, disappointed and 
humiliated at his failure to find the gold, silver, treasure, and 
cities for which he sought, Coronado and his surviving fol- 
lowers returned to the City of Mexico, and thence on to Old 
Spain, about 1542. 

It is also historically certain that about fifty miles nortli- 
west from White Oaks, in New Mexico, may be seen torday, 
still mutely bearing tlie ancient name of "Le Grande Quivira," 
the ruins of a once great city, which Coronado souglit and 
found not, but which present-day archaeologists say must 
have contained a population of from 150,000 to 300,000. The 
dwelling-houses, as now shown by these ruins, were con- 



432 Recollicctions 

structed with mathematical accuracy of blue trachite and 
limestone, while the two ruined temples stand far above all 
others, with nothing to mark their uses other than that which 
now appears as the form of a Portuguese cross in their front 
doors. Still traceable in this desert waste, irrigating-ditches 
indicate that this people once obtained their water supply 
from the adjoining mountains ; but for more than one hundred 
years past no water of consequence has been found within 
many miles of the ruins. Skeletons of the human, as well 
as of the lower animals, are there found ; old mining-shafts 
and crude smelters of ages ago are also found in that vicinity, 
but no mines of either gold or silver. While the prehistoric 
ruins of other once populous cities, in widely differing points 
in New Mexico and Arizona, furnish persuasive proof that 
these were once among the famed "seven cities of Cibola." 

Among the many traditions and legends respecting the 
causes which led up to the wanderings of this expedition, and 
to-day believed by many vSpaniards, Mexicans, and archaeolo- 
gists of the Southwest, are at least two that are worth preser- 
vation: The one is that on their eastward journey, Coronado 
and his party, almost famished for water, finally reached the 
big spring near the Indian pueblo in Taguex which is now 
Socorro, on the Rio Grande in New Mexico ; that these Indian 
guides then knew that the city of Le Grande Quivira, the 
main object of Coronado's conquest and expedition, was only 
about ninety miles northeast of this point, but instead of guid- 
ing him there, they then purposely misled him and carried the 
expedition northward and up on the west bank of the Rio 
Grande del Norte and on into Kansas. 

The other is that, concealing their abiding-place for 
many long years, from some remote country in the far North, 
mysterious sun-worshippers voyaged in their own ships to and 



Historical Sketch 433 

quietly purchased rich and abundant supplies of merchandise 
from the traffickers of the City of Mexico and of old Madrid 
in Spain, and that they were ever laden with gold and silver 
and precious stones, and the merchants assumed that they 
must represent a powerful and wealthy people who were 
skilled in the arts and sciences and lived in many-storied 
stone houses, with temples of wonderful magnificence, all 
enclosed within the walled city of Le Grande Quivira. How- 
ever this may be, it is quite certain that the second Spa.ish 
expedition to that country, about 1549, did capture and sub- 
due this ancient, prehistoric city and people, and then com- 
pelled all the residents of that vicinity to change their re- 
ligion from worshippers of the sun to Catholicism. When the 
Toltecs, Aztecs, and Spaniards first came to the great South- 
west, they found there, as elsewhere, the Indian. Through 
their priests and monks the Spaniards controlled all these 
natives, in that country, from about 1549 to 1680. at which 
later date the natives arose in their might and majesty, drove 
the foreign oppressors from their soil, and, curiously enough. 
after this lapse of about 130 years, at once resumed the dress, 
habits, customs, and religion of their fathers, and for many 
years thereafter held the undisputed possession of their native 
land. When the Spaniards returned to that country, about 
1740, they found this once happy, flowery, and fertile valley 
a howling wilderness or barren waste; the once populous city 
of Le Grande Quivira deserted and with no trace of its form- 
er greatness beyond human skeletons and the ruins, while the 
.shifting sands of the desert had covered the habitations of 
the people. 

Between 1680 and 1740. it is probable that every form 
of man and beast capable of doing so escaped that country 
before some impending calam.ity and were gradually swal- 



434 Recollections 

lowed up and lost in the adjacent country; but that all unable 
through age or disease to so escape, perished through the 
sulphurous fumes of the then recent volcano at the Mai Pais 
(Bad Country), then and now just south of these ruins on the 
desert plain. An extinct crater, visited by the writer in 
1892, is still seen; while the lava-beds extend thence over 
fifty miles down that valley. Just who these people were, 
whence they came, whither and when they went, how they 
perished, are all questions which can not be accurately an- 
swered this side of the river called Death; but the lover of 
the mysterious and unknown, the student, archaeologist, and 
thinker of the future, will stand amid these ruins, and will la- 
ment the fact with uncovered head, that so little of it all is 
known to man. 

But the precise point now of especial interest to the 
people of Kansas City arises upon an analysis of the circum- 
stantial evidence which points to the historical fact that at 
the eastern terminus of their long wanderings in search of 
the Quivira country, Coronado and his followers were the 
first white men to visit the very spot whereon now stands 
Kansas City. 

There is a half legendary story to the effect that from 
the historic spot upon which he once stood in northeastern 
Kansas, Coronado and the forces under his command passed 
on to where Atchison, Kansas, is now located, thence down 
the Missouri to the mouth of the Kansas, and thence sixteen 
miles up the latter to Coronado Springs, later called Bonner 
Springs, in Wyandotte County, Kansas, where they spent the 
winter of 1541-42. It is known that Coronado's Spanish cava- 
liers, among other weapons, then carried and used as an imple- 
ment of war halberds similar to the metallic Roman halberd, 
;ind in excavations in our Missouri River bottom lands within 



HisTORicAi. Sketch 435 

the past few years there have been discovered and unearthed, 
in a splendid state of preservation, beneath many feet of al- 
luvial soil, the metallic heads of two such halberds in this 
vicinity. The first is now in the possession of Professor 
Joseph A. Wilson, a distinguished archeeologist at Lexington, 
Missouri, and was found just northeast of Kansas City in th'.s 
(Jackson) county; while the other is in the hands of a Catho- 
lic priest at Leavenworth, Kansas, and was discovered just 
across the Missouri River from that city, in Platte County, 
Missouri. These late discoveries point to the conclusion that 
Coronado and his men once wandered over these hills and 
prairies, and that at least two of his cavaHers lost their lives 
in this immediate neighborhood through either savage In- 
dians or wild beasts, in both of which this country then 
abounded. 

1584: Many scholars claim and few dispute the historic 
proposition that from the voyage and discovery of Columbus 
in 1492, the Crown as well as the statesmen of Great Britain 
longed to explore and own all the territory which later be- 
came America; and that Queen Elizabeth, "in the sixe and 
twentieth yeere" of her reign, and on March 25, 1584, at- 
tempted to grant all this vast domain to her then trusted fol- 
lower. Sir Walter Raleigh. To those of the present day 
it is a trifle curious to note the fact that in this patent the 
Virgin Queen described the grantee thereof as "our trustie 
and welbeloued seruant Walter Ralegh, Esquire, and to his 
heires and and assigns forever" ; and also designated this coun- 
try as "remote, heathen and barbarous lands, countries and 
territories." This was the first step in the work of the En- 
glish colonization of America, and while under the grant of 
this authority five dififerent voyages were here made; yet that 



436 Recollections 

country did not then succeed in making a permanent settle- 
ment upon American soil. 

1607: In establishing a starting-point, known to all, it 
is well to here pause, look backward and reflect: That 
whether descended from Cavalier, Puritan, or Huguenot, the 
average American citizen has inherited and to-day holds, 
either consciously or unconsciously, many of the thoughts 
and tlieories of his remote ancestors, and that heredity, en- 
vironment, and education largely determine and fix our po- 
litical and religious faith. And it should be remembered that 
the United States was originally founded and the first perma- 
nent settlements were here first made by peoples of widely 
divergent views on both politics and religion under the au- 
thority conferred by three royal English grants to American 
colonists, as follows: Jamestown, in Virginia, in 1607; Ply- 
mouth, in Massachusetts, in 1620; and Charleston, in South 
Carolina, in 1660. 

1609: In the seventh year of his reign, James I., then 
King of England, by his royal patent dated AJay 23, 1609, 
granted to "The Treasurer and Company of Adventurers of 
the City of London, for the first colony of Virginia" (the 
same sovereign made the first cession to that colony in 1606) 
'all those lands, countries, and territories situate, lying, and 
being in that part of America called Virginia," from Cape 
or Point Comfort, a strip of land four hundred miles in width 
and therein designated as being "up into the land throughout 
from sea to sea." This cession from the Atlantic to the Pa- 
cific Oceans sought to make this part of the territory not only 
English, but within and part of the Colony of Virginia, for 
Kansas City is located on this 400-mile wide tract of land 
running from "sea to sea." 



Historical Sketch 437 

The subsequent European claimants were as follows: 

1682: Ceremoniou> possession was taken of all that 
country which afterwartl became the Louisiana Purchase, by, 
for, antl in the name of Louis XI\'., then King of France, at 
the mouth of the Mississippi River, on April 9, 1682, and this 
portion of the country was then given the name of that sov- 
ereign. While that claim was made and thereafter main- 
tained, yet the undisputed possession thereof did not actually 
begin, nor was there here made any permanent settlement, 
until the year 1699. New Orleans was founded in 1718, and 
permanent seat of the French Government was there estab- 
lished in 1722. In the meanwhile Louis XIV. first granted 
this entire province to one Anthony Crozat in 17 12, and his 
occupancy being a failure, later and in 171 7 granted a similar 
charter to John Law. This, too, proved a failure, and in 
1732 both charters were cancelled and all this country re- 
verted to the Crown of France. But in history, song, and 
story may yet be read and studied with profit the final failure 
of the John Law scheme under the name of the "Mississippi 
Bubble." 

1763: Then in that stormy struggle between England 
and France to settle and adjust their conflicting claims to 
this territory and their international disputes growing out 
of the French and Indian wars, by the treaty of Fontaine- 
bleau, duly ratified by the crowned heads of France, England, 
and Spain by the treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763, all 
the claims and possessions of France in all this country lying 
to the eastward of the Mississippi were ceded and granted to 
England, while all other portions of this country were then 
and therebv ceded to Spain. 



438 Recollections 

This treaty fully made the ground upon which Kansas 
Cit}' stands again Spanish. Without apparent knowledge of 
this treaty of Paris, the city of St. Louis, in Missouri, was 
laid out, founded, and named in honor of Louis XV. of 
France, in 1764; but in the following year Louis St. Ange de 
Bellerive there assumed the reins of government. Then came 
Count Don Alexandro O'Reilly, under the authority of the 
King of Spain, with an armed force, and formally took pos- 
session for the Spanisli King on August 18, 1769. From this 
date on, and in fact up to 1804, this territory was subject to 
and under the command of the Spanish Lieutenant-Governor 
of Upper Louisiana, whose seat of government was the city of 
St. Louis 

1800: But Europe was in turmoil, the great Napoleon 
was in the saddle and disarranging the map of all that coun- 
try. No one seems to have known just what was coming 
next. So, after many conferences and negotiations, the two 
countries of France and Spain at last got together and the 
result was the terms and conditions of the definitive treaty 
of St. Ildefonso, entered into on October i, 1800, by Napoleon, 
who was thedi the First Consul of the French Republic, on 
the one side, and the King of Spain on the other, by which 
all this country was retroceded to and again became a part 
of France. 

1803: Immeasurably greater in all ways than any other 
land transaction of earth, either before or since, and of vaster 
direct personal concern to the people of America than all oth- 
er treaties combined, in this year came the purchase and 
cession of Louisiana. The War of the Revolution had been 
fought and won. by our treaty of peace and cession, concluded 
with England in 1783, the United States had been granted all 
public lands, east of the Mississippi River (except in Florida"), 



Historical Sketch 439 

not owned by the original thirteen Colonies, the Federal Con- 
stitution had been proclaimed adopted in 1789, George Wash- 
ington and John Adams had been and Thomas Jefferson then 
was the President of the United States of America. Then it 
was that almost unaided and practically alone, Robert R. Liv- 
ingston, as our principal representative at the French Court, 
concluded with Napoleon Bonaparte, still First Consul of 
France, on April 30, 1803, the treaty of cession under and by 
the terms of which the French ceded and granted to the 
United States all that vast empire since known in history as 
the Louisiana Purchase. For a period of more than one hun- 
dred year.-, one of the illusions of our history has been that, as 
our President. Thomas Jefferson then was and to-day is en- 
titled to all the credit, honor, and glory of this great transac- 
tion. But a free people may always consider the truth of his- 
tory. Jeft"erson was a cautious and conservative statesman. 
The historical facts, then well known, in brief are: That 
under the uncertain and somewhat contradictory instructions 
from our Government at Washington, our diplomatic repre- 
sentative who mainly negotiated this great treaty was author- 
ized and directed, not to acquire this empire, but "only to 
treat for lands on the east side of the Mississippi." In othe^ 
words, to acquire (among other rights) that part of the Pur- 
chase then known as the City and Island of New Orleans. 

The Government at Washington did not, at first, dream 
of acquiring one foot of the unknow^n land west of the Missis- 
sippi River. The scheme to sell and cede to the United States 
all French possessions on this side of the waters originated 
in the fertile brain of that marvelous man. Napoleon Bona- 
parte, who proposed to dispose of it all, because, as he then 
said, France "had to sell." Livingston had no authority to 
negotiate for the purchase of anything save the city and 
island mentioned ; indeed, to do so was beyond and in practical 



440 Recollections 

violation of the instructions of our Government. Yet, with 
far-sighted statesmanship, rare courage, and sagacity, he saw 
the tremendous advantage of the Purchase to our country, 
wisely and bravely assumed the responsibility, closed the 
negotiations, and concluded this treaty. Hence to Napoleon's 
offer to sell, and Livingston's wisdom and courage in buying. 
we are to-day indebted for the Louisiana Purchase. Living- 
ston then said : "This is the noblest work of our lives." 

When the treaty reached Washington in that summer, 
the administration was astounded at the audacity of Living- 
ston as well as with the immensity of the transaction. Presi- 
dent Jefferson at that period inclined to the opinion that our 
Government had no lawful right to buy or hold the purchased 
territory; talked and wrote about making "waste paper of 
the Constitution," and even went so far as to formulate, with 
his own hand, an amendment to the Federal Constitution pro- 
viding for the government of the Purchase in the event that 
the Senate ratified the treaty. Great Livingston again went 
to the front and so strongly urged its ratification that the Pres- 
ident finally yielded, and duly submitted the treaty for ratifica- 
tion, but suggested that but little be said about the constitu- 
tional question involved, but little debate be had, and that the 
Congress should act in silence. 

Nothwithstanding the doubts and fears of the executive 
and the fierce opposition, the Senate wisely took the broaa 
national view that the right to acquire territory by conquest 
or purchase and govern it was inherent in every sovereign 
nation, that ours was a sovereign nation, and accordingl) 
the Senate, by an overwhelming majority, ratified the treaty 
and the Congress soon passed laws for the government of the 
Purchase, tlnis vindicating the sagacity, wisdom, and states- 
manship of Livingston as well as the sovereignty of the L'^nited 
States. 



HisToRicAiv Sketch 441 

Thus it came about that for the consideration named and 
about $15,000,000 of money, the United States purchased and 
France ceded to this Government all the land that had been 
theretofore retroceded by Spain to France. Of this cession 
Napoleon then said : "This accession of territory strengthens 
forever the power of the United States ; and I have just given 
to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble 
her pride." And in his message transmitting this treaty to 
Congress, which caused it proclaimed on October 21, 1803, in 
noting the possibilities of this Purchase, President Jefferson 
then said: "The fertility of the country, its climate and ex- 
tent, promise in due season important aids to our treasury, 
an ample provision for our posterity, and a wide spread for 
the blessings of freedom and equal laws." All this occurred 
before the days when steam and electricity were harnessed and 
working for the use of man, and is therefore not so strange. 
Then the average American had no adequate conception of 
the West; the bulk of our population lived east of the Alle- 
ghanies; and the people of the Atlantic seaboard knew even 
less then than they now know of our country lying west of 
the Father of Waters. This cession included almost all of 
the now States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Min- 
nesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Oklahoma, Kansas, the two Da- 
kotas, Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Wyoming. Of late 
maps have been published and books written to prove that this 
purchase did not extend beyond the crest of the Rocky Moun- 
tains ; but a study of Congressional debates upon this question 
will convince the scholar and thinker that all the States named, 
and parts of others, were intended to be included. On Octo- 
ber 31, T803, the Congress duly authorized the President to 
take possession of and occupy this territory, and on December 
20, 1803, formal possession thereof was duly delivered by the 
Republic of France, through Lauissat, its Colonial Prefect, to 



442 Recollections 

the United States, through VV. C. C. Claiborne and James 
Wilkinson, as Commissioners of our Republic. 

1804: For a few months after this purchase, all thi; 
country was known and designated as the Territory of Louis- 
iana, but this was changed, by our Congress, on March 26, 
1804, the now State of Louisiana and a part of that which is 
now Mississippi was designated the "Territory of Orleans' 
and all the remainder of the Purchase was then called the 
"District of Louisiana"' ; and that Congress then further pro- 
vided that the executive and judicial power of the Territory 
of Indiana sliould be extended to and over this District, and 
"the Governor and Judges" of that Territory were therein 
^iven the authority to enact laws for and hold their courts 
therein. So in May, 1804, Governor William Henry Harrison, 
from the seat of justice of Indiana Territory at Saint Vin- 
cennes on the Wabash River, rode over on horseback to the 
city of St. Louis to ascertain the wants of our people in the 
way of laws and courts. Having satisfied himself on these 
scores, this Territorial Governor returned to his home, and 
during that and the following year "the Governor and Judges" 
of that Territory enacted and here enforced such laws as they 
deemed were needed by this "District." 

In the spring of this year, too, the great Lewis and Clark 
expedition started from the city of St. Louis and came up the 
Missouri River and passed the site of Kansas City, on its way 
to the Pacific Ocean. The wondrously strange history and 
vaster possibilities of this expedition of 1804 and 1806, under 
the title of "The Conquest," has recently been well written 
and printed by Eva Emery Dye, of Oregon. 

1805: On March 3, 1805, the Congress of the United 
States enacted a law which not only changed our official name 
from the "District of Louisiana" to the "Territory of Lbui-- 



Historical Sketch 443 

iana," but provided for our first local Territorial self-govern- 
ment. That Congressional Act conferred upon the GovernoS' 
of this Territory full executive authority, while the legislative 
power and power to enact and enforce all laws was therein 
granted to that "Governor and the Judges, or a majority of 
them." 

1808: The most important and far-reaching Indian treaty 
that was ever made anywhere, affecting early Missouri, was 
that treaty which upon its face recites the fact that it was 
"made and concluded at Fort Clark, on the right bank of the 
Missouri about five miles above Fire Prairie," on November 
10, 1808, and that this Fort was then located "on the south 
side of the Missouri, about three hundred miles ud that river'" 
from the city of St. Louis. 

This treaty was between the Big and the Little Tribes of 
Osage Indians and our Government, and by its terms those 
tribes, then being in actual possession, ceded and granted to 
the United States all lands lying eastward of a line drawn 
due south from Fort Clark, and running from the Missouri 
River to the Arkansas River. This then left as ^ndian lands 
and country all westward of the line so drawn. 

Upon their slow voyage up the Missouri River on their 
way to the Pacific Ocean, in 1804, Lewis and Clark had first 
established this Fort, and then named it in honor of the junior 
member of their exploring party. After the ratification of 
the great Indian treaty of 1808, and as a tribute to the memory 
of the Osage tribes of Indians, the name of the place wa.s 
changed from Fort Clark to Fort Osage, and still later was 
again changed to Sibley, to perpetuate the name and fame of 
George C. Sibley, who was at one time the United States 
Government agent at that point. 

If any archjeologist is now curious to know just where 
to locate the site of ancient Fort Clark, the task is easy : Set 



444 IvI'COLLKCTlONS 

up a compass anywhere on the Alissouri-Kansas Hne, run due 
east twenty-four miles and thence due north to the Missouri 
River, and there may be found to-day the city of Sibley, in 
Jackson County, Missouri, once Fort Osage and still earlier 
Fort Clark. 

1812 : By an Act of Congress, which commenced "to have 
full force"' on the first Monday in December, 1812, the name 
of this portion of the country was again changed from the 
"Territory of Louisiana" to the "Territory of Missouri" : and 
txecutive, legislative, and judicial powers were then for the 
first time vested in and conferred upon our own peoples. 
Although the fathers then knew all about the Missouri River 
from near its source to its mouth, yet this was the first Federal 
recognition of the name now so well and highly honored — 
Missouri. This Act did not change our boundary lines and 
the Territory of Missouri then embraced and had jurisdiction 
over all the Louisiana Purchase, excepting only the extreme 
southern portion thereof, as stated. All general laws govern- 
ing this Territory from 1803 to 1821, both Congressional and 
Territorial, may be found in print in Volume i of the Ter- 
ritorial Laws of Missouri. 

1820: The enabling Act of the Congress of March 6, 
1820, was passed to authorize the people of this Territory to 
form a State and adopt a Constitution for their own govern- 
ment. The boundaries of the future State were then first 
fixed as they to-day remain, the "Platte Purchase" of 1837 
excepted. Our delegates thereupon duly formed, adopted, and 
on July 20, 1820, sent to that Congress a State Constitution, 
which was not satisfactory to our national law-makers. 

Upon the questions raised in the discussion of the en- 
abling Act was fought the most terrific political battle that 
had ever been waged in this country up to that time. It is 
known in history as the "Missouri Compromise of 1820," and 



Historical Sketch 445 

for length, intensity, and bitterness this struggle then had no 
parallel in American history. 

1821 : The final result was that on March 2, 1821, the 
Congress by resolution provided for the admission of this 
State into the Union, with slavery, but "upon the fundamental 
conditions" named in the Act. On June 26th following our 
Legislature entered its protest against that condition, but gave 
its reluctant assent to its terms, and lastly, on August 10, 1821, 
James Monroe, as President of the United States, proclaimed 
the historic fact that on that day Missouri became, and it has 
ever since been, a State of the American Union. 

The organization, Constitution, and admission into the 
Union of the State of Missouri then left all the remainder 
of the Louisiana Purchase lying we^^tward and northwest of 
this State, as unorganized Territories, possessions of this Gov- 
ernment, then subject to Congressional legislation, but having 
no laws of their own, excepting those theretofore passed by the 
several sovereigns named. 

1825 : The original proprietors, known as the Big and 
Little Tribes of Osage Indians, having relinquished their 
titles to all lands lying east of a due south-and-north line 
drawn from old Fort Clark to the Arkansas, in 1808, as stated 
heretofore, this left a strip of land twenty-four miles in width, 
lying due eastward of the west line of this State, and running 
from the Missouri River to the Arkansas River. The Indian 
title to this strip of land was relinquished by them and ceded 
to the Government of the United States by the terms of the 
treaty of Nampawarrah, or White Plume, of date June 3, 
1825. From these Indian tribes the Government then derived 
its title to them, and not until then did the United States, as 
a part of the public domain, come into full and complete pos- 
session, ownership, and control of the lands upon which Kansas 
City now stands. This strip of land was soon opened up for 



446 Rucoi^LKcrioNs 

entry, purchase, and settlement. Hundreds of hardy pioneers 
with their wives and children were waiting on the border line, 
and when the day came that they could lawfully do so, these 
men here made the first great "rush" on record for Indian 
lands. 

1826: Jackson County was organized under the General 
Assembly Act of date December 21, 1826, and the first session 
of its county court was, held at Independence on July 2, 1827. 
But prior to this time the lands now embraced within the 
limits of/ this county had by law been theretofore included 
within the borders' of the counties, successively^ of St. Louis. 
Howard, Cooper, Lillard (name later abolished), Lafayette, 
and finally Jackson. 

1828 : When the title to this strip of land was fully vested 
in the United Stateji by the extinguishment of the Indian title 
in 1825, the eastern portion of Jackson County had been set 
tied for some years; as early as 1821 a number of French- 
Canadian trapperSj traders, and huntsmen had squatted upon 
and occupied lands along the Missouri River front ; but the 
first white American to make a permanent entry of and settle- 
ment upon lands now included within the boundaries of Kan 
sas City, was James H. McGee, whose patent for his 32< ' 
acres of this land bears date November 14, 1828. 

1833 : Under a grant of legislative authority, the town 
of Westport, now within and a part of Kansas City, was estal)- 
lished in 1833, and for many a long year thereafter the few 
people who lived in the straggling hamlet along the Missouri 
River front, and at the steamboat landing here, were known 
only as citizens of Westport Landing. 

1839: In the report of his explorations of 1673, Mar- 
quette first mentions the Kansas tribe of Indians as being "on 
the Missouri, beyond the Missouris and Osages," and from 



Historical SkivXCH 447 

that tribe the Kansas River derived its name. The name of 
tribe and river was both' spelled and pronounced in very dif- 
ferent ways by the explorers, but Kansas City was originally 
so named! to perpetuate both, and was tirst platted as the 
•'Town of Kansas" in 1839. 

1850: On February 4, 1850, the Jackson Couhty court, 
by its order of record entered at Independence, first formally 
and duly incorporated the "Town of Kansas," and then gave 
to the people, near the mouth of the Kansas River, their first 
Ideal self-government. 

1853 : l.^>y a special Act of the Missouri Legislature, duly 
adopted on February 22, 1853, the name of the ''Town of 
.Kansas" was changed to the "City of Kansas," and on that 
day we first became an incorporation under the laws of this 
State. Various amendments were later made to that charter, 
and by the first freeholders' charter, adopted by our people 
under grant of constitutional authority in 1889, the name was 
again changed from the "City of Kansas" to "Kansas City."' 
But for many long years now this city has i:)roperIy and proud- 
ly borne its present name of Kansas City, Misspuri. 

1854 : It may again be here noted in passing that all that 
country from the westward line of Missouri to the crest of 
the Rocky Mountains was and officially remained unorganized 
"Indian country" up to 1854. Repeated efforts had been there- 
tofore made by the Congress of the United States to segre^ 
gate it from the State of Missouri, and bills \vm\ been 'intro- 
duced at Washington to make it all into one Territory under 
the name of Platte and Nebraska ; but finally, on May 30, 1854, 
the Congress adopted an Act, known throughout the English- 
speaking world as "The Kansas-Nebraska Act," under which 
these two were created and erected into Territories on the 
same day. Kansas became a State of the American Union 
on January 29. t86t, and Nebraska on March C 1*^67. ' 



44S Recollections 

In the "Historical Sketch" of Kansas City, printed as a 
preface to our annotated charter and revised ordinances in 
1898, appear in full the facts relating to two amusing incidents 
of that which might have been : The one is that at the first 
platting and naming of this city, in 1839, one of our early and 
wealthy settlers, who always signed his name as "Abraham 
Fonda, Gentleman," because he was not a working-man, earn- 
estly desired that the future city be named in his honor as 
"Port Fonda." He was about to succeed in this when, un- 
fortunately for his fame, he became involved in a fierce quar- 
rel with another part owner named Henry Jobe. The com- 
bined efforts of the old "Town of Kansas" company and 
Jobe's threats of fist and shotgun finally prevailed and are 
responsible for our present name. The other is that in 185 s 
a concerted effort was ineffectually made to cede and grant all 
lands lying west and north of the Big Blue River, from the 
point at which that historic stream crosses the Missouri- 
Kansas line near the ancient town called "Santa Fe," down 
to its mouth on the Missouri, to the then Territory of Kansas. 
Had the former scheme won out, Kansas City would now be 
"Port Fonda," and had the second won, we should now be in 
and a part of Kansas. 

1909: Through all the seething and roar, the bustle and 
the hurry, the buying and building, the enlarging and prog- 
ress of the years intervening between 1839 and 1909, Kansas 
City has ever pursued the even tenor of its way, the Kansas 
City spirit pervading city and country alike; nothing save 
an invisible line divides the two great municipalities near the 
mouth of the Kansas, and the stranger within our gates would 
not dream of its existence ; while, between the two combined 
cities and their suburbs, \ye now have a population of half a 
million of happy and prosperous people, all hopefully con- 



Historical Sketch 449 

fident that the future of Kansas City will be even more glori- 
ous than its past. 



The text of this book was completed in 1909, but publica- 
tion was s ) delayed that three published utterances of mine in 
1910 are here inserted: 

Rkmarks on TiiK Passing of Mrs. Van Horn, 1910. 

The silver cord was loosed and the golden bowl broken 
when the devoted helpmeet of my friend, Colonel R. T. Van 
Horn, passed from earth in July last. As the long-time per- 
sonal friend of that family, I answered their call and. among 
other things, spoke the few words of an old neighbor: 

[Reprint from Kansas City Journal of July 27. 1910.] 

In the presence of that natural yet mysterious change from 
this life to the next, no matter when, where, or how it comes, 
the survivors always stand face to face witli one more lumian 
tragedy. 

But in now bidding good-bye to this neighbor and friend, 
our selhsh grief for our own loss is here swallowed up in 
heartfelt condolence for her bereft companion, who for nearly 
sixty-two years was the honored husband of. and walked and 
talked with her whose going away we deeply deplore, and whose 
gentle memory we honor and revere; for now, alone, in his 
eighty-seventh year, he drains the bitterest cup that can touch 
the lips of man. Our sympathy goes out, too, to the stricken 
son, who is the sole survivor of her four stalwart boys, and to 
iier other kindred, as well as to the legion of friends of this 
good woman. 

Strong and vigorous of mind and body, clear of head, and 
warm of heart, without the shadow of ostentation or parade, 
the people of this community for fifty-five years have known 



450 Recollections 

and felt that in her forceful personality, gentle manners, intel- 
ligent and broad charity, the life and example of Mrs. \'an 
Horn have at once proven a blessing and a benediction to all 
wliii knew her: while as wife and mother, neighbor and friend, 
she daily exemplified the attributes of a model of the truest 
and best in womanhood. 

To her memory, as well as to truth, it is but simple justice 
to say here that for many years Mrsi. Van Horn always an- 
swered with an emphatic "Yes" the world-old inquiry pro- 
pounded away back in the Book of Job : "If a man die, shall 
he live again?" In this circle of her friends, I violate no con- 
fidence in the mention of this personal incident : When I was 
ill down at Washington, a decade ago, she and I there had a 
long neighborl}- talk about the hereafter. That which as clear- 
ly as the sunshine at noonday presented itself to her as con- 
tinuing in the beyond the present existence in a natural way, 
to me seemed a dim and unknow'able mystery. But in her 
quiet, motherly way and wathout the slightest intent to pros- 
elyte, >he then mentioned as plain, simple facts : That her 
husband was brought up in the Presbyterian faith and she in 
the Methodist; but so exalting were their solace and pleas- 
ure in communing with children and friends who had preceded 
them to the vSjjirit World, that she blessed the day when both 
had embraced the newer cult, and added : "We would to-day 
be most miserable if this consolation were not ours." 

Comprehending nothing beyond Nature ; knowing noth- 
ing of future life, following neither creed nor dogma, conced- 
ing to others the absolute right to believe whatsoever they 
may, to me the faith and belief of Mrs. Van Horn is to-day 
as sacred as any other; for long ago I learned that it was 
neither safe, nor sane, nor tolerant for me to question the trutli 
of any belief simply because I did not understand it. So, in 
this respect, but one proposition now seems clear, and that is. 



I 



Passing of Mrs. Van Horn 451 

that any faith, hope, or behef as to the hereafter, that satisfies 
tlie longing of any one human soul, is the highest and best 
reUgion for that particular individual. 

At a "Van Horn night," held in the Greenwood Club here 
some years ago, both the Colonel and ]\Irs. Van Horn were 
present. Many old-time friends spoke at length, and there re- 
viewed the achievements of Colonel Van Horn, who in his 
long, busy, useful career as the owner and editor of the Kansas 
City Journal, commander in the Union Army during our Civil 
War, State and national legislator, and as a public official at 
home, had accomplished so much for the great West that he 
was justly recognized as our foremost citizen. 

In his short, clear, characteristic response to all this, the 
Colonel modestly disclaimed especial personal credit, and then 
added: "Whatever of honor or praise is due for all these re- 
sults, must be attributed to the fact that when absent from 
here, I could always devote all my time to the duty before me, 
because I always knew that all zcas going zvell at home." A 
loftier tribute to a noble, patient, faithful, and helpful wife, 
no man ever paid to a woman. Her body n^w rests in peace 
in this casket, and with her. throughout all the ages that yet 
shall be. all will still go well at home. 



Slavkrv. Its Origin, Evolution, and End. 

[Reprint from the Cafion City Record, 1910.J 

Emancipation Day, August 4. 1910. 

Miss ]' in/mid Rudolph. Canon City. Colorado. 

My dear Granddaughter: — Now that your mother and 
you are awa}' from heme on your simimer vacation among the 
Rockies, it is not to be expected that you will there get and 
keep in your little head very much of the many useful items 
of the fast-fading history of your country ; but as this is Eman- 



452 REC0I.LECT10NS 

cipation Day, and now that I tliink of it and have the time, I 
here jot down for future reference a few facts noti generally 
recognized, as to one important question with which you ought 
to be perfectly familiar in the years that yet shall be — negro 
slavery : 

The first permanent European settlement on American 
soil was established at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. At and 
prior to that date the English law had made over one hun- 
dred offenses capital crimes, the punishment for which was 
eith:r death or banishment, at the pleasure of the sovereign. 
Soon after this settlement at Jamestown, the British Crown 
banished to the Virginia Colony three ship-loads of these con- 
victs, who were adjudged guilty of trivial offenses, and those 
who came over on the first ship were then styled the First 
Families of A'irginia. So to-day we still speak of the F. F. 
V.'s in a proud sort of way, without considering the fact that 
originally those who called themselves F. F. V.'s were not 
exactly the highest and best people of eartli. Of course, no 
such bar sinister rested upon the escutcheon of the great ma- 
jority of our early-day Colonists, for they were stainless; bit 
the mists of Time obscure some facts. 

In the latter part of 1619 a Dutch slii]) landed at James- 
town a cargo of twenty African slaves, and that was the be- 
ginning of negro slavery on Ame-iciu soi:. 1"oti Jamestowi 
this peculiar institution spread throughout the Colonies to such 
an extent that when our Federal Constitution was adopted in 
1789, negro slavery was lawiuuy recognized 111 every btate 
in the Union. Indeed, the only part of this country where such 
slavery was not lawful at first was in the far soMth Colony 
of Georgia. That Colony was originally settled by ex-convicts 
and malefactors, but among the wise and humane laws there 
enacted under the direction of Governor Oglethorpe, was a 
law which absolutely prohibited negro slavery in Georgia, and 



Sl^AVERY LUTTliR 46J 

from the beginning up to 1752 the sweet svinshine of heaven 
rested on no Georgia slave. Then the law was repealed and 
the people of that Colony (and later State) owned negro slaves 
thenceforth to the taking effect of Lincoln's great Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation on January i, 1863. 

Meantime many great and good people of the South grew 
weary of the burden of slavery, and the Colony of Virginia, 
through its House of Burgesses, protested twenty-three dif- 
ferent times against the British Crown permitting the importa- 
tion of other and further negro slaves into that Colony. These 
repeated protests were unheeded ; the profits of the slave trade 
were so enormous that despite the passage of Acts of our 
Congress against the further importation of slaves, that trade 
continued up to the Civil War, beginning in 1861. 

Born and reared among the slaves of Virginia and their 
owners, spending much time since 1861 among the people of 
all our States in the South, I knozv that away back in slavery 
days the whites of that section of our country did not regard 
as an unmixed blessing or evil the institution referred to. 
From one generation to another slaves were handed down like 
other personal property, and thousands inherited their blacks 
who hated slavery. But what could they do? Laws provided, 
and justly so too, that if and when an owner freed a flave, 
then that the person and property of the former owner wa; 
bound for the future conduct of the manumitted slave ; he mu.st 
give bond that the slave should not become a public charge, 
while the former slave in most cases could not and would not 
properly care for his future. In that day slaves were worth 
on the market from a few dollars up into the thousands of dol- 
lars, and therefore self-interest, if not humanity, required and 
demanded their fair and humane treatment. So that in most 
instances the negro was better off then than now. If sick. 



454 Recollections 

the master fed. clothed and doctored him, and looked after, 
cared and thought for him, in both sickness and health. 

Business interests and dollars, not sentiment, dominated 
the earlier settlers of America, and the people there were not 
long 1 1 learning that neither cotton nor sugar cane could be 
gr.nvn at a profit in the far northern States, and for that 
reason alone it did not pay to there own and work negro 
slaves, and slavery was abolished prospectively. Our God- 
fearing Northerner did not emancipate and thus free his 
slaves, but enacted laws providing that on and after a certain 
date slavery should not be lawful in the particular State, and 
then between the date of the passage of the Act and its going 
into effect, piously and prayerfully sold his slaves on auction- 
blocks down South. That is ■tC'/?3' and liozv the institution of 
slaver}' ceased to exist in our Northern States. Only the few 
ever know or understand history. But the basic error is that 
both sides present this question with such consummate skill as 
lo make the exception seem the rule. It 's always easy to 
fool people who want to be misled. 

When our Big War commenced by the firing on Fort 
Sumter on April 12, 1861, slavery was not only lawful, but 
actually existed, as I now recall history, in fifteen of our South- 
ern States, but only eleven of those States seceded from the 
Federal Union — Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware 
retaining their slave property and remaining in the Union. 

The Emancipation Proclamation upon its face and by its 
express language affected only the slaves in those States and 
parts of States which on January i, 1863, "were in actual 
rebellion against the United States." So that it did not touch 
slave property in Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland, 
nor in that which is now West Viriginia, nor certain parishes 
in Louisiana, etc. In all these border slave States that institu- 
tion remained lawful until within their respective sovereignties 



GiLBOA Reunion Speech 455 

slavery was there abolished, beginning with the State of Mary- 
land on the first day of November, 1864, followed by Missouri 
on January 11, 1865; while freedom did not come to all the 
slaves of all our States until the proclaimed adoption of the 
13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States on 
December 18, 1865. 

Now, if you will study and make all this your own, you 
will know more about the history of the slavery question than 
most of the present generation ever dream of knowing. 

Adios. H. C. McD. 



GiLBOA Church, Family Reunion, 1910. 

[Reprint from Fairmont West Virginian, September 17, 1910.] 

Judge Henry Clay McDougal, of Kansas City, who was a 
distinguished visitor at the reunion of the McDougal, Dudley, 
and Boggess families at Gilboa, Wednesday, gave the principal 
address of the day, dwelling upon an historical sketch of the 
families assembled. The address is given below : 

My Kindred and Friends: 

Back again to the land of my birth, standing once more 
among the kindred, neighbors, and friends of my early years, 
whom I left for the Big War nearly half a century ago, there 
comes to me now the impulse to quote the words of Rob Roy, 
that other wandering and somewhat lawless son of old Scotia : 
"My foot is on my native heath and my name is MacGregor." 

Then, again, the truth and the wisdom of a familiar say- 
ing of the Xazarene here and now appeals to me as never be- 
fore, "A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, 
and in his own house." For in this presence I am conscious 
of the fact that my personal status is here like unto that of my 
lawyer friend Miller, of Indianapolis. When Benjamin Har- 
rison was inaugurated as our President, one of his first official 
acts was the appointment of his old law partner as the Attor- 



J 56 RlvCOLLECTIUNS 

ney-General of the United States. Soon after qualifying, Mil- 
ler returned to his old home in Pennsylvania as I have come 
back to mine in West Virginia, and later on told this story of 
his visit: At the little station not many miles over the hills 
from his cliildhood home, General Miller, an utter stranger 
and in a strange land, found that an old farmer was 
going in his wagon over near his father's farm. Over 
the mud they rolled in silence for a time, when this con- 
versation occurred between them: "By the way," said 
Miller, "an old farmer named Miller used to live in this 
neighborhood, didn't he?" The farmer answered, "Yas." 
"The old man had a lot of boys, didn't he?" "Yas; three 
or four." Then, with heart swelling with honest pride, 
Miller inquired: "Wasn't one of these boys lately ap- 
pointed to some high office?" "Yas; we heerd so." "Well, 
what did the old neighbors say when they heard the news of 
tiiis appointment?" "They didn't say nuthin'; they jist laf t !" 

But seriously, now: As the devout Mohammedan turns 
his face toward his shrine in offering up his daily prayers, and 
fails not to make pilgrimages to his Mecca, so, no matter where 
he may rove, the heart, face, and pilgrimages of the native of 
old Marion County are always turning backward to his child- 
hood home. Born and reared just across the hill from this old 
church and grove, my early years were here passed among 
you, and when comes the closing scene, no doubt it will be said 
of me, as long ago it was said of bluff old Falstaff : "He bab- 
bles of green fields." This great creation of greater Shake- 
speare as he lay dying, talked of the fields of old England; but 
with love, affection, and reverence, my own thoughts may then 
wander back to the trees and the "green fields" of old Marion 
County, as these grow and flourish in heaven's sweet sunshine 
around old Gilboa on Dunkard Mill Run. 

As blood is still thicker than water, it is but natural that 
the descendants of the three families whose lives and achieve- 



GiLP.OA Reunion Speech 457 

ments we here celebrate insist that the clans Dudley, Boggess, 
and McDougal originally stood high above all others on the 
roli of fame on Dunkard Mill Run; but the call of the roll of 
those who drank the waters of this Run half a century ago, 
when I was a young, barefoot, freckled-face boy and got stone- 
bruises on my feet and fought with other belligerents of this 
entire scope of country, would be found to include such other 
good men and true as Morrow, Morris, IVIartin, Straight, Mor- 
gan, Walmsley, Wilcox, Atha, Toothman. Robey, Brown, 
Hawkins, Poling, Davis, Laidley, Ice, Gribble, Pitzer, Evans. 
Sharp, Miller, Prichard, Youst, \'each, Wilson, Sturm, Bil- 
lingsley, Mc\''icker, Fawcett, Jones, and Upton. 

The families of Dudley, Boggess, and McDougal of their 
slender frontier stores contributed their full quota of money 
or money's worth to the building of the first Gilboa Methodist 
Church on these grounds ; and only a few days ago, down near 
Fairmont, my aunt, Mary Catherine Clayton, showed me an 
old booklet, in which was written, in the fine but elegant hand- 
writing of my great-grandfather, Lindsay Boggess, accurate 
accounts of the money, labor, "meal or malt" of the early 
pioneers who also contributed their full share to the erection 
of that church on May i, 1814, and among these other earnest 
woodsmen I find the names written of many other families, 
and among them can there to-day be seen the names of Amos, 
Brown, Boor, Campbell, Clayton, Dawson, Davis, Dragoo, 
Freeland, Foreman, Fletcher, Fluharty, Hufifman, Hall, Hig- 
ginbotham. Ice, Jones, Kearns, Laidley, Megill, Morgan, Mer- 
rill, Martin. Metheny, Moran, Miller, Prichard, Price, Parker, 
Pitzer, Prickett, Ouigley, Rice, Shackelford, Squires, Snider, 
Satterfield, Straight, Thompson, Toothman, Upton, Willey, 
Wilson, and Youst. 

A few words now about the early history of the three 
families, Dudley. Boggess, and McDougal : 

The house of Dudley originated, so far as history con- 
tains its record, at the town of Dud in England in the seventh 



458 Recollections 

cenlury. anel since then until their descendants came to the 
American Colonies, through the veins of the Dudleys there 
coursed the purest, tenderest blood of the nobility of merry old 
England. Men of peace as they always were, some of the 
earlier Dudleys were not averse to the conflicts of their times, 
but the only real hard fighters of that family I ever knew per- 
sonally were Fleming Dudley, who presides over this reunion, 
and mv great-uncle, Samuel Dudley, who on this Run, away 
back more than a hundred years ago, intermarried with and be- 
came the husband of Margaret ("Peggy") McDougal, a sister 
of my grandfather, John McDougal. Samuel Dudley died at 
a ripe old age near here, and was the only sailor and soldier 
of the American Revolutionary War under the command of 
George Washington I recollect ever to have seen. Just what 
ones of the Dudleys first came to America, or when or where 
they located, I do not know ; but it is certain that at an early 
date more than one male member of that family came from 
England to the Colony of Virginia. 

The Boggess family originally came from Spain, where 
the ancient family name is still preserved and still spelled 
'•Boggio." 

It is probable that those of the name who first came to the 
American shores for a time sojourned in Wales, but the first 
ancestor I have been able to definitely locate was a pleasure- 
loving, cock-fighting, horse-racing planter of Fairfax County 
in the Colony of Virginia named Robert Boggess, who was in- 
dicted, along with George Washington and others, in 1760, 
at Fairfax Court House, for failing to return for taxation to 
the Colony's assessor his "wheeled vehickles." From this 
Robert Boggess, our direct descent is through his son Henry, 
then Lindsay, then my grandfather, Henry, and last my 
mother, whose maiden name was Elvira Ann Boggess. 

The clan McDougal originated in the Highlands of Scot- 
land, where at the dayn of history the name was spelled 
"Dhu-Gal." 



GiLBOA Reunion Speech 45i) 

The family then owned all the islands off the west coast 
of that country, but in some way later possessed all lands on 
that coast, and still later at one time, about 1306, fought with 
and overthrew King Robert Bruce and for a short time, through 
their chieftains, ruled the whole of Scotland; then they were 
in turn overthrown by the Bruce, who killed all its clansmen 
capable of bearing arms save two hundred and eighty-eight, 
and since that day the clan has not been an important factor 
in that or any other government. 

Their tartan is still preserved, as is also the coat of arms 
of the clan, which bears the Latin legend. "Vinccre vel Mori." 
Liberally translated, this motto means, "We conquer or die." 
In the sixty-five years of my life I've known many McDouo^ah. 
but never knew one that wouldn't rather "conquer" than "die.'* 
Their determination and stubbornness have always been pro- 
verbial — a family failing. 

About 1770 the church government of the District of 
Lome in the Scottish Highlands sent from there to a small 
flock of Presbyterians who had theretofore settled on the Mo- 
nongahela River, in the Colony of Virginia, a talented young 
preacher named William ^NlcDougal, to administer to the spirit- 
ual wants of these settlers. William McDougal there married 
a Miss Brand and there his two children were born. He was 
my great-grandfather. His oldest child was John AIcDougai, 
my grandfather, born February 29, 1776; and his daughter 
was "Peggy," who later married Samuel Dudley; and both 
these children were born at what is now ]\Iorgantown in this 
State, and later lived on Dunkard Mill Run. 

The Dudleys were on Dunkard Mill Run when my grand- 
father McDougal came here in 1798 and Lindsay Boggess in 
1810. - For generations the McDougals had been Presbyterians 
in the Highlands and the Boggesses were Church of England 
people in Fairfax County in Virginia. But at that early day 
they found here neither a Presbyterian nor an Episcopalian- 
all were Methodists. Wiselv they waived their church pref- 



460 Recollections 

erences and joined with the Dudleys and other frontier neigh- 
bors in this vicinity, and with them here organized this con- 
gregation just a century ago. At first they then met around 
at the homes of the pioneer neighbors; but worshipped here 
afte.- the completion of the original old log church in 1814 — by 
them called "The Gilboa Meeting-House." That was the first 
congregation organized and this the first church erected within 
the present limits of Marion County. My great-grandfather, 
Lindsay Boggess, then gave to this church these grounds, in- 
cluding your beautiful grove and the big spring. 

As a boy, I was present in 1858 with my two grandfathers 
and my father, John Fletcher McDougal, when the original 
old log building was razed for the erection of this edifice on 
its site, and recall now that they, with Uncle Elias Dudley and 
other old-timers, then told me the early history of the Gilboa 
congregation ; and among many other things, said that Grand- 
father John McDougal was here your first class-leader for 
thirty-five consecutive years, always came on horseback across 
the hill, attended divine services with the regularity of clock- 
work, and in all that time never once failed to hitch his saddle- 
horse t3 a limb of the same oak tree in this grove. In the race 
of life the people of this community thus started right ; and 
I am glad to see that in this regard the generation of to-day 
treads in the footsteps of our ancestors. So it does me good 
to here and now join in this first family reunion with so many 
hundreds of other descendants of the founders of old Gilboa. 
May the day never come when you shall cease to obey the 
farewell admonition of the great Law-giver to the children of 
Israel: "Remember the days of old. consider the years of 
many generations." To annually consecrate your lives anew 
to cherishing the memory and emulating the virtues of the 
early settlers of Dunkard Mill Run can bring you nothing but 
good, for in their lofty example we all "have a goodly 
heritage." 



INDEX. 

A 

Arthur, Chester A., New York City 97 

B 

Bender, Harry A., Kansas City, Mo 286 

Birch, James H., Sr., Plattsburg, Mo 36 

Bittinger, John L., St. Joseph, Mo 252 

Blaine, James G., Augusta, Me no 

Blodgett, Wells H., St. Louis, Mo 46 

Boggess, Caleb, Clarksburg, W. Va 16 

Boggess, Henry, Rivesville, W. Va 289 

Brisbane, Albert, Paris, France 295 

Broaddus. Elbridge ]., Chillicothe, Mo 22 

Brown, Stephen S., St. Joseph, Mo 39 

"Buffalo Bill" (Cody), Cody, Wyoming 312 

Burnes. James N., St. Joseph, Mo 41 

C 

Campbell, Archibald W., Wheeling, W. Va 253 

Carhart, Charles E., Chicago, 111 304 

Carlisle, John S., Clarksburg, W. Va 1 14 

Cavanaugh, Richard, White Oaks, N. Mex 308 

Chandler, Jeff., Los Angeles, Calif 42 

Clay, Cassius M., White Hall, Ky 117 

Clemens. Sherrard, Wheeling, W. Va 119 

Cleveland, Grover. Princeton, N. J 97 

Coghlan, Joseph B., United States Navy 168 

Compton, William B., Harrisonburg, Va 171 

Comstock, Charles G., Albany, Mo 313 

Craddock, George W.. Frankfort, Ky 62 

Crittenden. Thomas T., Kansas City, Mo 120 

461 



462 Index 

D 

Davis, Jefferson, Biloxi, Miss 124 

Dean, Henry Clay, Brisbane vs.. 302 

Devere, William, Denver, Colo 21 

Dockery, Alexander M., Gallatin, Mo 125 

Doniphan, Alexander W., Richmond, Mo 37 

Douglas, H. Kyd., Hagerstown, Md 68 

Drake, Charles D., St. Louis, Mo 47 

Dudley, Boyd, Gallatin, Mo 20 

Dunn, George \^^, Richmond, Mo 37 

E. 
English, Thomas Dunn, Newark, N. J 323 

F 

Field, Eugene, Chicago, 111 278 

Finkelnberg, Gustavus A., St. Louis, Mo 48 

Fleming, A. Brooks, Fairmont, W. Va 16 

Foreword 7 

G 

Garfield. James A.. Mentor, Ohio .' 96 

Gilboa Church, Reunion Speech 455 

Goff, Nathan, Clarksburg, W. Va : 16 

Gould, Ashley M., Washington, D. C 81 

(^irant, Ulysses S., New York City 94 

H 

Hagans, John Marshall. Morgantown, W. Va 17 

Hagerman, Frank, Kansas City, Mo 24 

Hale, John B., Carrollton, Mo 22 

Hall, Williard P., St. Joseph, Mo 43 

Halpine, Charles G., New York City 275 

Hardwicke, Samuel, Liberty, Mo 28 

Harrison, Benjamin, Indianapolis. Ind 103 

Harrison, William A., Clarksburg, W. Va 17 

Hayes, Rutherford B., Fremont, Ohio 9^ 

Haymond, Alpheus F., Fairmont, W. Va 15 

Haymond. Thomas S., Fairmont, W Va 142 



Index 463 

Hewitt, John Young, White Oaks, X. M:x 71 

Historical Sketch, Kansas City, AIo 430 

Hitchcock, Henry, St. Louis, Mo 48 

Hough, Warwick, St. Louis, Mo 48 

Howard, Frederick, Kansas City; Mo 325 

Howe, Edgar W., Atchison, Kan 345 

Hubbard. Elbert, East Aurora. N. Y 347 

Hunt, Robert Henry, Kansas City, Mo 174 

I 

Ingalls, John James, Atchison. Kan 133 

Introduction, .' n 

J 

Jackson, John J., Parkersburg, W. Va 18 

Jewett, David J. M. A., Capitan, N. Mex 350 

Johnson, Andrew, Greenville, Tenn 92 

Johnston, Elizabeth Bryant, Washington, D. C 355 

Johnston, Frances Benjamin, Washington, D. C 359 

Johnston, Sanders Walker, Washington, D. C 82 

Joseph. Chief Nez Perces. Oklahoma 354 

K 

Kansas City, Historical Sketch of 430 

Kelley, Benjamin F., Wheeling, W. \*a 176 

Kidwell, Zedekiah, Fairmont, W. Va 142 

King, Austin A., Richmond, Mo 37 

Krauthoff. Louis C. New York City 75 

Leahy. T. John, Pawhuska. Okla 78 

Lee. Fitzhugh, Richmond. Va. 181 

Leopard. John A., Gallatin. Mo 21 

Leopard Memorial Address 421 

Lincoln, Moses and 412 

Lindsay, William, Frankfort. Ky 63 

Loan, Ben, St. Joseph, Mo 45 

Looking Backward, 418 

Low, Marcus A., Topeka. Kan 58: 



464 Index 

M 

Majors, Patrick Upshaw, Frankfort, Ky 64 

Mason, John W., Fairmont, W. Va 16 

Martin, Ben. F., Farmington, W. Va 142 

Maulsby, Thomas A., Fairmont, W. Va 196 

McClellan, Emma Kelly, Crary, N. Dak 361 

McComas, Louis E., Hagerstown, Md 68 

McCrary, George W., Kansas City, Mo 27 

McCullough, Joseph B., St. Louis, Mo 253 

McDougal, John F., Bancroft, Mo 364 

McFerran, James, Colorado Springs, Colo 18 

McGee, J-oseph H., Gallatin, Mo 185 

McKinley, William, Canton, Ohio 106 

Meade, Alfred, Fairmont, W. Va 367 

Miller, George E., Fort Worth, Tex 80 

Miller, Joaquin, Oakland, Calif 280 

Morgan, William S., Rivesville. W. Va 141 

Moses and Lincoln 405 

Mulligan, James A.. Chicago, 111 200 

N 

Noble, John W., St. Louis. Mo 49 

Norton, Elijah H., Platte City, Mo 34 

O 

Oh-lo-hah-wah-la, Pawhuska, Okla 372 

P 

Peckham, Wheeler, New York City . 75 

Peery, Stephen, Trenton, Mo 54 

Peters, Mason S., Argentine, Kan 142 

Philips, John F., Kansas City. Mo 24 

Pickett, La Salle Corbell. Washington, D. C 375 

Pierpont, Francis H., Fairmont, W. Va I44 

Pitt. John E., Platte City. Mo 35 

R 

Ray, Robert D., Carrollton, Mo 21 

Reed, Thomas B.. Portland, Me I49 






Index ^q^ 



Richardson, Samuel A., Gallatin, Mo 

Riley James Whitcomb, Indianapolis', Jmh. ^^^ 

Rombauer, Roderick E., St. Louis, Mo ^ 

Roosevelt, Theodore, Oyster Bay N Y "^^ 

Root, Elihu, New York City ' ^°^ 



Rossington, William H., Topeka Kan l^ 

Rudolph Virginia (Slavery Letter), Kansas' City," Mo.' " '4,1 
Ryan, Abram J.. Mobile. Ala y' ^'.. .43I 



Rudolph, Virginia (Slavery Letter), Kansas ' City " 

278 

s 

Schenck, Robert C, Dayton, Ohio. 

Schley, William W., Hagerstown, Md . . . '5^ 

Shanklin, John H., Trenton, Mo 

Sheetz, Frank, Chillicothe, Mo ^^ 

Shelby, Jo O., Adrian, Mo ^^ 

Sherman, William T., United States Army.' .' ig^ 

Sherwood, Thomas A., Springfield, Mo ^o 

Showalter, John H., Fremont, Neb 211 

Simpson, Jerry, Wichita, Kan 1^2 

Stephens, Alexander H., Crawfordville, Ga i„ 

Stone, William Joel, Jefferson City, Mo 1^4 

Storrs, Emery A., Chicago, 111 Jl 

Stringf ellow, Ben. F., Atchison, Kan .... . go 

Switzler, William F., Columbia, Mo .^yy 

Swope, Thomas H., Kansas City, Mo .378 

T 

Taft, William H., Cincinnati, Ohio lO;; 

Thompson, Seymour D., St. Louis, IVIo ..''!! ^379 

Thorne, Joshua, Kansas City, Mo 242 

Tichenor, Charles O., Kansas City, Mo ' ' ' 23 

Torrance, Ell, Minneapolis, Minn 68 

U 

Ulrick, George L., Carrizozo, N. Mex 383 

"Uncle Watty," Fairmont, W. Va 396 

Usher, John P., Lawrence, Kan 61 



406 Index 

V 

Vance, Reuben A., Cleveland, Ohio 386 

Van Horn, Robert T., Kansas City, Mo -255 

Van Horn, Mrs. R. T. (Funeral Oration), Kansas City, 

Mo 449 

Vories, Henry M., St. Joseph, Mo 45 

W 

Wagner, David, Canton. Mo. 21 

Ware, Eugene F., Kansas City, Kan 394 

Warner, William, Kansas City, Mo 156 

Whitman. Walt, Camden, N. J 280 

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler, New York City 279 

Wilder, Daniel Webster, Hiawatha, Kan 266 

Wilkinson, Nathan, Wheeling, W. Va 245 

Willey, Waitman T., Morgantown, W. Va 157 

Williams, Edward Lindsay, Washington, D. C 398 

Wilson, Edward S., Olney, 111 57 

Withrow, Thomas F., Chicago, 111 56 

Witten, Thomas Adams, Kansas City, Mo 402 

Y 
Yuletide, 1902 — Qnere? 418 




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